The last time I watched it was the first time I didn’t laugh out loud a lot. But I figured it’s because I know all the jokes by heart.
I’ll be interested to hear your take.
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It’s peak spoof comedy. If you have a Hoopla-linked library card, you can rent it for free through there right now.
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I see Airplane is also on Pluto.
Will depend on whether I can get my old guy housemate to turn off his non stop stream of terrible B movies featuring nekkid women and tons of violence. Say what you will, at least he has an ethos.
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I’m so looking forward to the Rewatchables discussion on the unnecessary boobies. Gonna savor it like fine wine.
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It’s the funniest movie ever imo. But I don’t expect it to land 100% in 2025.
I’d give Bridesmaids the current crown.
Shirley you can’t be serious.
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I saw it in theaters and it’s the only thing I remembered from the movie.
I somehow never saw it until now. Sooooo many 80s things Zoomers would never understand.
The Materialist (2025j
A pretty great film with a WOAT marketing campaign. It sells this as some kind of rom-com when in fact it’s a pretty cynical, but incisive, look at love. It is sometimes funny but mostly bitting, cutting to the core of modern love and power dynamics. The cast is great. The script is phenomenal and the direction is soft but confident.
Between this and Past Lives, Celine Song is becoming one of my favourite writer directors. It’s also pretty incredible that her husband wrote challengers. There is some serious talent in that family.
Grade: A-
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I had The Terminator on this morning and it was a cornucopia of things kids today would have no idea what they were. Just back to back to back to back. Walkman, corded phone, gigantic answering machine, pay phone that didn’t work, pay phone that did, etc. etc.
Airplane! would suffer the same fate for anyone who grew up post 9/11. They’ve never experienced anything like that movie and it makes so many scenes in it crazy absurd even though they were all pretty normal things back then while trying to be crazy absurd.
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I’m glad someone else has seen this.
That couple never, ever, ever, EVER stays together, right? I just think it’s so weird to go with that as an ending after spending too much of the movie laying to waste that it can ever work. It’s like they slapped a romcom ending on something that, as you said, was really not a romcom for the most part. I wish I hadn’t been left so frustrated by that part. I still really enjoyed the movie and already look forward to watching it again.
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I felt the same way about the ending for Rob Reiner’s The Story of Us.
Totally agree but I honesty give Song enough credit to assume it was an intentional commentary on the genre. Even if it was it was weak for sure especially given her previous movie has a goat ending.
I am also a little unsure of the
sexual assault subplot.
Your spoiler has certainly drawn its share of negative attention. I didn’t think that part was handled badly, personally. I don’t see it as a negative in the movie.
On what I said above:
The issue, of course, isn’t her falling back into some sort of thing with Chris Evans. That’s fine; even if it’s ill-advised, that’s very true to life. People obviously do suboptimal shit like that all the time. And it especially made sense after a negative life event caused her to perhaps temporarily overcorrect hard, almost like she was trying hard to prove to herself that she really could get past her own materialism. But man, if Song is going to be self-aware about that ending, it needs to be tied to something interesting about the Dakota Johnson character at least. I haven’t come up with a way that it really does anything good for the movie, and man I’ve been trying, because I still come out on the clearly positive side of the ledger with this one.
If you want to go with an uplifting ending, convince me that all of our characters (or at least the final two) are in a good place for long-term success, which in the case of Evans and Johnson means carrying their lives forward separately. If you’re going to go with a cynical ending, do it in a way that actually feels meaningful.
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Generally agree with this. As for the controversial subplot I am not sure how I feel. Like the end, my strong inclination is to give Song the benefit of the doubt as she so clearly understands how relationships work.
I agree about giving Song the benefit of the doubt on that SA part. I’m sure I’d be much less comfortable with that aspect if a man had directed this.
By the way, I totally missed that John Magaro was the guy on that phone call related to the spoilered part.
Oh I didn’t catch that either. Nice cameo from past lives.
proof we live in the most blessed timeline:
https://x.com/Variety/status/1934422675054641165
i imagined how bad those movies would have been with will smith in them, and started down the slippery slope of wondering if the bad movies he chooses to do could have been good if he never got involved. like an anti tom cruise.
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I’d still have been interested to see Will Smith in The Matrix. Clearly the movie didn’t require good acting from the lead in order to be an elite movie anyway. I’ve been persuaded with time that Keanu was a good fit despite his general lack of talent, but I expect that Matrix feat. Will Smith would have worked too.
Him being in Inception instead of Leo is bonkers to think about though. Nolan certainly dodged a bullet if Smith turned it down. Movie doesn’t work for me anyway, but a movie starring Leo basically never gets better - and in most cases gets noticeably worse - by casting someone else.
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