Movies (and occasionally face slaps) (Part 2)

[ctr123]

No one will save you

Feel like you guys oversold this one

Pros : the idea of “no dialogue” for this kind of movie is great, and very well executed (i didn’t even notice it anymore after the first 5 minutes).

Cons : monochrome movie (95% gray, 4% green, 1% red)
felt derivative (war of the worlds basement scene, which itself was already a remake of jurassic park) and kinda repetitive (there’s a reason why horror movies don’t usually reveal the villain in the first 20 mins). Should have been more daylight and/or with other humans scenes.
the “trauma” plot was good as long as it was background to justify her isolation, but the movie broke down when this became the main focus (terrible ending imo)

[LKJ]

Yeah, not having seen any of those is surely a me problem. I was pretty sure at least The Deer Hunter was that year. Will continue to plug the holes in my viewing resume and will watch all of those.

[Huehuecoyotl]

I probably will go this because I like Jessica Henwick and it features something extremely scary, Australians.

THE ROYAL HOTEL - Official Trailer

[CanadaMatt3004]

How has there never been a horror movie simply titled “Florida Man”

[eyebooger]

I don’t have any kind of online rating system (I should probably do that sometime), but off the top of my head I’d give 5 to Judas and the Black Messiah and 4.5 to Sound of Metal, One Night in Miami, Promising Young Woman and The Father. Maybe Minari gets 4, but I probably stop there.

I don’t think this is a case of me going full Dave Meltzer and breaking my scale. I wouldn’t have given 4 to any of this year’s BP nominees (though non-nominees RRR and Argentina 1985 would get there), and maybe not the year before that either.

It’s just a case of a bunch of individual films that I seem to like about a full star higher than you. They just happen to have been released in the same year.

[Trolly]

Honestly, I didn’t even care about the no dialogue element of the movie (Twilight Zone did it better), I just thought it was great horror/action direction and the pacing stayed intense for nearly the whole runtime.

[LKJ]

Nah, of course I wouldn’t ever expect you to go full Meltzer (or even really something less insulting), I don’t think your opinions are outlandish or anything.

Honestly I think one thing that looms over that whole year for me is Nomadland crushing the Oscars. It’s not even really a fair thing for me to hold against a whole movie year, but I think it’s the first Oscar movie I watched from that batch and it just left me going “WTF, so I guess this year sucks then?” And while I watched the other movies and preferred basically all of them aside from Mank, I do think it created a mental framework about that year that I never really shook off.

I’m definitely more positive on the most recent batch of Oscar films (primarily on the strength of Tar, Banshees, and Maverick) even though I was lukewarm on EEAAO.

[RiskyFlush]

Right like there were a few things I’d have done differently for a bigger emotional payoff at the end (and that’s not to belittle the end, which is very effective).

But for anything I concede to criticisms of the movie, jeeeeeeesus I was on the edge of my seat the whole time with my significant other literally screaming every fifteen seconds.

[Trolly]

If you guys haven’t seen Season 2; Episode 15 of TZ (“Invaders”), you’re missing out on world-class TV.

[RiskyFlush]

Don’t hate me for cheating. I swear I’ve seen all of them a million times even if I don’t remember them.

Twilight Zone: The Invaders in 2 minutes or less

[clovis8]

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song (2021)

A good documentary and one of the best singer-songwriters writing arguably the best song ever written. Spending 90 minutes in Cohen’s world is always like a soothing bath of zen calm. It enriches the soul.

[suzzer99]

The Rewatchables just did Big Chill, so I watched it for the first time in many years last night. Some of the jokes come off a little corny, but other than that it holds up.

Simmons said it was one of his big ones that he was always going to do, so it makes sense that it’s the first new Rewatchables I’ve been excited about in a while. I’m within a few months of Bill’s age and apparently our tastes in movies are a 90% match (except for sci-fi, which he doesn’t like and is my favorite genre).

The Big Chill came out when I was in 8th grade. It’s weird how much it resonated with my generation given the music was all much older, and so were the characters and the adult life issues they were wrestling with. My big takeaway was that every adult smokes weed, but only some do coke (until I moved to LA, which is the opposite), and everyone sleeps with everyone.

William Hurt subtly goading Goldbloom into taking the luude so he could hit on Meg Tilly had me rolling. Meg Tilly doing yoga holy crap. Poor William Hurt, I kept thinking if he can just hold out until Viagra, maybe it will fix his issues. But I guess he got his junk injured in Vietnam, so maybe not.

I had both Big Chill soundtrack albums on cassette (I think there was a third?), and wore them out. I’d heard most of those songs before, but they were such a new sound to me at the time from my usual heavy rotation of Def Leppard-Van Halen-Ozzy-AC/DC. I think there is something to Motown being a timeless golden age of music. You Can’t Always Get What You Want and The Weight are in a similar vein.

Even Craig the 20-something producer loved the music and the movie. Even though the people in the movie are Boomers and a certain age (late 30s), the theme seems to resonate across all ages and generations.

Oh yeah, when Jeff Goldblum tells the woman who’s desperate to make a baby that he’ll make a baby with her and she says “nahhhh”, I’ve been there. Not sure if I’d actually have gone through with it, but she was hot, so of course my first inclination was yes. But I guess she wasn’t that desperate. ;)

[suzzer99]

I’m watching Booksmart now. 20 minutes in and I’ve already belly-laughed 5 times.

[LKJ]

@LKJ

Will continue to plug the holes in my viewing resume and will watch all of those.

Err, so the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead is just completely unstreamable even if I pay out? And my only option would be to buy a DVD for $15? I can’t even find a library copy, and my local library system seems to be able to get any DVD ever made. Weird. It…may take some time to get to that one. You don’t see something significant being that inaccessible these days almost ever.

[LKJ]

I just watched Jennifer’s Body. That is a truly atrocious movie. Shame on the Letterboxd collective for making me think it was worth a go.

[RiskyFlush]

Yep. I felt like the trailer promised me a very different movie.

Now try Tamara.

https://tubitv.com/movies/313913/tamara

An awkward teenager who loves witchcraft comes back from the dead to seek revenge on classmates who accidentally killed her during a cruel prank.

Written by same guy who did Final Destination. And in a weird coincidence to your prior post, Jeffrey Reddick next wrote Day of the Dead (2008).

Stars Jenna Dewan, who was recently in AMH: Asylum

She was also married to Channing Tatum for a while, which means he had the honor and pleasure of performing with her for this episode of Lip Sync Battle.

Channing Tatum & Beyonce's "Run The World (Girls)" vs. Jenna Dewan-Tatum's "Pony" | Lip Sync Battle

[LKJ]

@RiskyFlush

Tamara

I almost always look at the IMDb before putting something on my watchlist, but for some reason neglected that with Jennifer’s Body. I see afterward that it would have offered me the rather significant red flag of a 5.4. I think I probably have to wait a while before venturing into sub-6 IMDb territory again.

[jhall23]

It’s been stuck in rights hell for quite a while. Some asshole producer is being a little baby about it. I ended up finding it through my local library. I haven’t kept up to date, but I think there was some movement in the direction of it becoming available again some day.

[RiskyFlush]

I don’t think anyone can be blamed for rushing to see Jennifer’s Body back in the day.

Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman fresh off their success with Juno, and the two stars of Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried couldn’t have been a bigger draw at the time.

Hard to imagine a better package for this kind of movie in 2009, even if it wasn’t quite the home run it seemed destined to be. I think it was a good decision for you to have seen it.

[LKJ]

All true, and I was happy to blow past the 48% RT as I fired it up on my Apple TV. But shit. Like I said, the combined popularity and decent score on Letterboxd led me into a trap. Oh well. Gotta have some one-star ratings if I’m ever going to achieve a full bell curve in my ratings graph. Yes I am a nerd and the foregoing is a real thought.