One of the only movies I ever remember having an intermission, that I intended was The Right Stuff.
We need intermissions back. Theatres love them too as they sell more food which is how they make most of their money.
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Point Blank (1967)
This movie drops you into it in a deliberately disorienting way and then spends what wasnât a terribly long time but nonetheless felt like an eternity continuing to hide the ball and leave me not knowing what the hell I was watching. Some of you get movie anxiety from watching awkward social situations or intense horror scenes, but me? This is it. A movie making me feel like an idiot who might be the only one who doesnât know WTF is going on is nightmare fuel. âA man in my position cannot afford to be made to look ridiculous!â -Jack Woltz, The Godfather
Thankfully, the movie eventually brings you in on what itâs doing and puts on an engaging show. Lee Marvin, an actor of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance fame and not be confused with Dr. Leo Marvin from What About Bob?, is our POV character, and he is off on a tirade to settle an old score and seek out revenge. His motive? Well, I wonât spoil it, but I will say that it made the movie feel a bit more absurd at times. Letâs just say that I have more sympathy for John Wickâs willingness to burn it all down on behalf of his deceased dog than I did for this characterâs mission. Still, the mission was usually quite entertaining, and the filmmaking style here feels unique and fresh, notwithstanding my complaints about it being unduly mean to my unobservant ass during the first act.
If you like vigilante justice movies, this is a good one. Itâs on Tubi. And, FYI: it seems like the average review of this movie is even more positive than mine. People seem to love this one. As for me, Iâll give it a 3.5/5.
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Yeah, this movie whips.
On the heels of me bitching about movies being too confusing for me sometimes, I did enjoy bumping into this review today from someone I follow on Letterboxd:
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People call each other bro in real life?
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Young people do. My teenagers say it a lot, but itâs not really calling someone âbro,â itâs more just an emphasis word or a substitution for âhey,â like in that above tweet.
Adrien Brody is awesome. Very pumped for The Brutalist.
âNothing has been scrapped,â Miller tweeted in response. âThe reels are coming along nicely.â His comment came hours after âSpider-Verseâ composer Daniel Pemberton similarly hit back at the report, writing on X, âDonât really ever want to weigh in on this sort of stuff BUT would you ever believe there could sometimes be stuff on the internet that might not always be particularly accurate? HmmmmâŚâ
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I use brother a fair amount with my very close friends. Itâs something that stuck with me from being a kid in the 70s. My father was a major labour activist and thatâs how they referred to their union comrades - Brother Mick, Sister Ruth, etcâŚ
I certainly donât use it in the âbruhâ manner and I donât use it with many people, but my very close friends are often referred to as brother (not bro or bruh)
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The Fall Guy: The Extended Cut is on peacock and i gave it a watch because i liked emily blunt in that wild west revenge series and i liked ryan gosling in the last couple movies iâve seen him in.
idk what they cut from this for the theater version, but for me the first hour was too romantic comedy, when i was looking for an action comedy. then it transitioned into an action comedy and it still wasnât great. light on the comedy, for me. 1 maybe 2 good stunt sequences.
i liked the parts where itâs so outrageously stupid that it becomes a farce, that brought the enjoyment, but thereâs just not enough. they should have made those parts the whole movie imo. but then the movie would only be like 35 minutes long. i shoulda just rewatched The Nice Guys, thatâs what i really wanted
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The Fall Guy having an extended cut is completely absurd to me because the theatrical cut was already 20 minutes too long. I would have liked it a decent bit if it was tighter, but it ended up feeling bloated and exhausting. Fair to say Iâm not intending to ever fire up the even longer version.
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If you liked the farcical stunt work, check out Bullet Train. Its from the same director, but has none of the romantic comedy BS and a lot more of the fun action set pieces
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i liked the action of bullet train but i canât say that i liked the movie. idk why, i love all the actors, but on some level that i canât articulate it just doesnât work for me
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on further reflection, my problem with the fall guy is the core concept. itâs a love letter to stuntmen and to action movies featuring real stunt work. so they throw in tons of practical stunts, because thatâs what the movie is about. and they want to honor the hollywood tradition of stunts by showing all these stunts that weâve seen done before in other movies. and thatâs what they wanted to do and thatâs what they did, but i think audiences donât like seeing stunts theyâve already seen. people enjoy stunt work the most when itâs something theyâve never seen before, thatâs when itâs best. thatâs why tom cruise is the greatest. and thatâs why i think he turned down this movie because during the first part i was thinking, âwow tom cruise should be in this movie and be doing all his own stunts that would actually be an interesting gimmickâ but like i said itâs just not good enough as a core concept to be a tom cruise level movie
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Rebel Ridge (2024)
A movie with a poor first half that offers a satisfying conclusion will in most cases feel like itâs been salvaged to some extent, but the movie with a strong first half that canât keep its momentum going tends to make for an unfortunate inverse.
The initial situation that ignites the plot, and the direct consequences of that situation, make for really propulsive filmmaking. And as someone with little familiarity with Aaron Pierre, it also felt like I was watching an exciting breakout performance in progress. He has a ton of presence and immediately feels credible as the lead of this thing.
Unfortunately, the movie arrives at a point where it needs to find a reason for the plot to continue, and when I wasnât able really buy into that, it hurt my ability to stay interested. And the momentum, which had once been hurtling along at a very high rate, began to slow and never really regained what it had. The movieâs final act does provide a decent climax, but it also makes a key choice that I didnât care for, a choice that feels unearned under the circumstances.
There is stuff to recommend about this. I do think itâs something of a breakout for Aaron Pierre, and I look forward to seeing what he does next. And the first half of the movie really does verge on greatness. But âstarts strong and canât keep it goingâ is one of the more frustrating experiences that still compel me to give an above-average grade.
This is a new straight-to-Netflix release. Itâs getting good reviews and again Iâm probably being a bit more negative than the average reviewer. I dunno; check it out if you feel like it.
3/5
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Postcards from the Edge (1990)
Fair to say that my motivating impulse for watching, that a Meryl Streep/Shirley MacLaine collaboration would almost certainly have a high floor, at least proved true for this movie.
The mother/daughter drama that drove this story was not incredibly deep or anything, but it still felt like it gave plenty of room to Streep and MacLaine to stretch their legs and do their thing. I was pleasantly blown away by the musical numbers (in a movie that is not a musical, to be clear); I didnât really know Streep had that in her. I suppose I could have known that from Mamma Mia, but unfortunately that movie is notâŚwellâŚgood. But in this one? She crushes it in this scene that seems to kind of come out of nowhere.
This movie is worth the watch just to see a couple of masters of the craft shine. Itâs on Prime Video.
3.5/5
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I noticed that Carrie Fisher was the screenwriter on this, but in reading about it now, apparently this was adapted from a semi-autobiographical novel that she wrote. I went down this rabbit hole after seeing this review.
Which I guess means Streep was playing Fisher and MacLaine was playing Debbie Reynolds? For her part, this caused Debbie to say âuhh, noâ to that interpretation.
âI would like to have played the role. I tried to get an audition for the part, but Mike Nichols wanted Shirley, and I thought she did a great job. Itâs not about me and Carrie, but itâs a very good picture. I am not an alcoholic, and whatever else the part was. I donât have time to get drunk. I work 42 weeks a year.â
Who knows. As much as Iâm always game for Debbie Reynolds, I do think MacLaine always operated on an even higher level, so I canât fault the casting decision.
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I ⌠donât follow the logic here
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