It should be said that the comparison was actually to a hypothetical True Lies 2, so whatever you think of True Lies, you have to implement an expected quality drop-off of 20%. Yes, occasionally a sequel is as good as or even better than the original, but I think the 20% expectation is how a person would have to go into it. It’s the most likely thing you’re getting.
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One good recent bit of casting of Matthew MacFadyen is his one-scene role in the Julia Garner movie The Assistant (which is a good movie).
He plays a sleazy HR guy, which is essentially him running back Wambsgans in another universe without - I assume - the same wealth or powerful connections. I’m sure he’d probably like to escape the Wambsgans name just to keep a wider array of career options, but this one-scene cameo was great.
Then we can at least agree Avatar 2 was worse, and Avatar 5 will be the lowest part of the franchise.
I definitely enjoyed it, but it was not nearly as scary or gory as it was hyped up to be. My wife hates scary movies, but was willing to see it and she didn’t think it was that bad at all (in terms of scariness). Still good, though. More of a tense thriller than outright scarefest.
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Felt like basically the same movie to me.
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I did think it was a bit weaker, yeah. They’ve kept up a quality level where I’ll certainly be in for Avatar 3, but I don’t hesitate to pull the plug on an ongoing franchise if I feel like they’ve dipped below a standard I want to watch without any particular reason to believe they’ll get better. So TBD as to whether I’ll even watch Avatar 5. I try - and surely sometimes fail, but hopefully succeed more often - to avoid letting my completist tendencies get the better of me. I hate it when studios just keep printing money whether they keep the franchise quality up or not.
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OK I have upped the ante on the lengths to which I will go in order to watch a really bad movie.
Not available to stream anywhere, which I feel like is pretty hard to do these days. Made me all the more eager to see it.
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I saw it way back when and enjoyed it.
The Teachers’ Lounge (one of the Best International Feature nominees from this past year) is on Netflix now. Good movie. It seems, uhh, less than ideal for American viewership that Netflix has seemingly only added it under its German name.
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I’ve been able to watch several movies recently, largely due to a trip to Europe followed by being knocked down by COVID. My very quick thoughts on an extremely random group of films:
Glass: The third movie of M Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” trilogy. I loved the first movie, thought the second movie was surprisingly good, and thought this was one quite poor. What really struck me, though, was that Bruce Willis was an absolute empty husk. I was extremely uncomfortable watching the movie any time he was in it, watching him awkwardly move and talk, knowing that he probably had no idea what was going on.
North by Northwest: Random airplane choice. I thought it was fine, but that the story was too convoluted to really buy into. Looking at wikipedia, I enjoyed reading this:
Hitchcock often told journalists of an idea that he had about Cary Grant hiding from the villains inside Abraham Lincoln’s nose and being given away when he sneezes.
Yes, it does seem like a case where the creator had to backfill an interesting conclusion with a shaky premise. I’m astonished at how high it’s ranked in the greatest films lists, and I assume it’s more because it was influential than because it’s actually a good movie to watch.
The Irishman: Holy shit I finally got around to it. I did it! I was leery about the face technology used to de-age everyone, but that ended up not bothering me too much. It was tough, though, to watch young-face Robert DeNiro have such a hard time assaulting people with his real-life-old-person body. I think the bigger issue is that the movie isn’t nearly interesting enough to warrant the >3 hour runtime.
The Holdovers: Another plane movie. This one I thought was great, and I’m sure I’ll be rewatching it - it didn’t deserve the status of a plane movie. I sometimes wonder how I should feel about actors’ performances and whethey they deserve awards. On the one hand, Paul Giamatti was great in this character, as he normally is. On the other hand, it kind of feels like he’s just always playing the same character, which I now assume is just him.
Wedding Crashers: This was at some point in the return flight when I was already exhausted from the trip and delirious, and just needed something moving in front of me. I remember not really enjoying it that much when I first saw it in theaters, and I still didn’t enjoy it. Which is a shame because I know I like at least a couple Vince Vaughn movies more than the average person (The Break Up and Made, in particular.)
House of Games: Somehow I found myself watching a bunch of Ricky Jay clips on Youtube, which reminded me that I like Heist, which reminded me that there were other David Mamet movies I had been meaning to watch. Oh man did I have a mixed reaction to this. There were aspects that I really, really liked - Joe Montegna and Ricky Jay, the dialog, and the general vibes. But the basic plot/twist wasn’t great and my god was Lindsay Crouse terrible as the lead. Like I know she’s your wife, but you could have cast literally a thousand other women and this movie would have been infinitely better. I think Crouse is also strange as the nurse in The Verdict, but I think it works much better in that movie (probably because it’s such a small role). Here it’s just too much. 4 stars from Ebert was a surprise.
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Youre a monster
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He gave a rosier review to The Holdovers than to The Irishman and North by Northwest, and it was liking The Break-Up that drew that remark?
If we didn’t have that movie, Vince Vaughn never would have said, “I WISH EVERY GUEST HAD THEIR OWN PERSONAL BAG OF LEMONS!”
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Doesnt matter, every shit movie can have a good line or two.
I dislike The Break up more than any movie Ive ever seen, including Silver Linings Playbook
True! But it’s not a shit movie. Every Favreau/Vaughn interaction is quite funny. The entire dinner party sequence at the beginning is highly entertaining. Vaughn relentlessly talking shit to the kid while beating him at Madden online is some funny stuff. Lots to enjoy. I mean I understand not liking it, but having it all the way at the bottom is wild to me.
Let’s set the record straight - I liked The Break Up (and Made) more than the average person seemed to, which was why I was somewhat surprised that I liked Wedding Crashers so much less than the average rating. I’m not holding up The Break Up as an actually good movie. (I basically rewatch the first, I don’t know, 15 minutes of it and then turn it off.)
And I wouldn’t disagree with someone who thought Irishman or North By Northwest were “better” than Holdovers - I can imagine that a really insightful critic could point out dozens of reasons why those two movies are superior. But I do know that I’m probably going to rewatch Holdovers and am almost certainly not going to rewatch the others.
I do totally understand this FWIW. I do think The Holdovers could maybe be the most rewatchable of the three. Plus it’s nominally a Christmas movie, so there’s a natural built-in excuse to bring it out every few Decembers or something.
I do think The Irishman was absolutely masterful, but the runtime is staggering and I haven’t found the will to actually give it a second go yet.
Trying to calibrate here. How strongly do you agree/disagree with the (clearly correct) ranking: Goodfellas > Casino > Irishman?
All fantastic films. I give Goodfellas five stars and I give 4.5 stars to Casino and The Irishman. I’d put The Irishman marginally higher than Casino, but I’ve only seen each one once, and it’s been a decent bit since I saw Casino. I don’t have a major disagreement with how you group the three.
North by Northwest is basically a James Bond movie before Bond. There are some earlier Hitchcock movies that also prefigure the genre, but this is the most polished.
Plus it’s got the amazing crop duster sequence and a few other good sequences.
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