Garfield
Not Rated
I think kids won’t mind it but it was blah for the adults who went
My wife watched it. She loves the 80’s and stuff like this. She thought it was “meh.”
Watched Shotcaller yesterday.
Rather meh overall, but I do plan on aggressively addressing every white person as “wood” from here on out.
It definitely was less “F yeah the 80s” and more “Andrew McCarthy still has a sad over being called The Brat Pack”. I have always heard he is (or was) insufferable and you can see that at several points of the movie. Still, I enjoyed watching it.
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I feel like for the most part anyone from that group or era that had real talent had a decent career if they wanted it. Boo hoo I was famous and made millions and got prime tail during the best years of my life but some magazine writer called me a brat.
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He’s made something of a second career out of being a travel writer and has a few books out. He spoke to our travel writing workshop (he’s friends with Rolf Potts, the teacher) and seemed to have his acting career and life in perspective. He’s definitely passionate about writing.
Donald Sutherland has left us at age 88. He provided us some good performances.
2 Likes
The Bikeriders
One of my great hates in this life is car horns. If you ever use your horn as a temper tantrum instead of strictly as a safety device, fuck you. I don’t need that noise injected into my life. So it will come as no surprise that I also don’t like the goddamn noise that comes from motorcycles. Likewise, the fetishization of badass bikers is well outside of my comprehension. And of course it should be noted that vehicle-based Tom Hardy movies can’t be relied upon to be good. Anyway, this is all to say that a biker movie isn’t exactly custom-made for me.
But this one definitely works. They’re not reinventing the wheel; you’ve seen the basic story beats many times before. It’s a vibes movie, but it lands. I already had a positive opinion of Austin Butler, but I’m more fully sold on him as a long-term star by this movie than I have been to this point. This movie does not ask of him the great acting performance that Dune 2 asked for (and that he delivered on). He’s asked to smolder and ooze “it” factor, and he does it. At this point, he provides more of a draw for me to want to see a movie than Glen Powell does, and it’s not particularly close.
I actually think the best acting in this movie does belong to Tom Hardy. The choices he makes while he mumbles his way through the movie just work, and I think he was ultimately my favorite part. But it’s also worth noting a nice outing by Jodie Comer, who I had really not been exposed to previously. Apparently she was in The Rise of Skywalker as Rey’s mother? Zero recollection of that; the less said about that movie, the better. But I liked her a lot in this, and look forward to future appearances from her.
Strong 3.5/5. Snap-reaction is to put it just outside my top five movies so far in (a still pretty weak) 2024. Recommended.
4 Likes
Saw it tonight too and 3.5 is good, probably a 4 for me, liked it a lot but it’s not special.
Tom hardy was obviously the best part but I love him. He was the main reason I was hyped to see this.
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Re Comer I am most familiar with her from a show called Killing Eve. The show is about a cat and mouse game between a detective (Sandra Oh) and an assassin/serial killer. The show drifts into crazy town after a while, but Comer is absolutely amazing as the killer who puts on different personas as she runs around the world murdering people.
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I’ve heard good things about that show. Might have to give it a longer look.
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Was going to mention Killing Eve too, very entertaining show and Comer is great in it.
Also have been looking forward to Bikeriders because of those 3 main actors, big fan of all of them.
Pigs and Battleships is a top-ten gangster epic and we as a society don’t talk about that enough.
This is worth watching. A three part history where I learned some things I didn’t know even though I went to two of the years. Has a great low res edge to it.
Big +1 to Killing Eve and to Jodie Comer. The show gets kinda weird towards the end, but the first two seasons are 9/10 at least, really good.
Ghostlight
8/10
A construction worker stumbles into a community production of Romeo and Juliet
This, along with The Leftovers and Fried Green Tomatoes, were films this year where that I felt something rather than just being entertained. It’s not a great movie, but a solid, unpretentious, dramedy. It’s a literal family of working actors playing a working family working while learning and dealing with grief.
Keith Kupferer does a great job. His performance was such that after spending the first third of the movie being repressed and bottled up that when, as part of a theater exercise he has to say the emotion he’s feeling, it really does feel like it’s the first time that he’s ever said an emotion out loud.
Dolly De Leon is a 50 year old force of nature.
Katherine Mallen Kupferer fills the scene with personality in every scene she’s in.
One part that cut me deep was as part of the daughter explaining what Romeo and Juliet is she says “there’s a movie. It’s really old but but good. We had to watch in class”. Cut to them watching a scene and I was expecting the 1960’s movie but nope cut to Claire Danes and Leo. That made me feel older than any ‘boy are we getting old’ joke could
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I started watching Back to the Future II, I think for the first time, so I could listen to the Rewatchables. This is a terrible terrible movie. I’m not sure I can finish.
It’s not going to get much better. Simmons and Co. slobber over it anyway. They also tell you part III is kinda bad, which it isn’t.
I’m watching Cape Fear now so at least I’ll have a good Rewatchables to listen to. Although it’s as much of an unpleasant experience for different reasons.
Juliette Lewis is so incredible in this.
Alright, it’s on Tubi for the rest of the month, I’m firing it up. Fingers crossed that I’ll be part of the majority who thinks you’re wrong.