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Mark’s movie corner.


Daddyjt

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I watched this one last night. It wasn't anything special acting-wise but the plot, and the ramifications of what was done, was very interesting. It made me think...

 

 

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This is one of my favorites. Time to watch it again. Not your typical post-apocalyptic genre, where violence is the only  entertainment..., in this movie, it is a saga, a struggle, a journey, a challenge against odds for a reason that is revealed at the end... (no spoiler from me).  If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

 

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Kid's told us we should see this movie..., "Always Be My Maybe" it has some good belly laughs in it.  Having lived in SF/Bay area for a couple decades, lots of things / experiences were familiar.  (After grinding 20 stumps out of the ground yesterday, I needed something completely mindless..., and this fit the bill with a good Cabernet.)

 

In particular, I thought the song at the end, during the credits, "I Punched Keanu Reeves" was clever.  And, well, shows another side of Keanu, made me think of @Daddyjt .  Yes, it's rap..., sorry..., but fun.  

 

To fully understand, you have to see the whole movie..., yes, Keanu is in the movie.

 

 

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Caught this Showtime Documentary last night, on Netflix.  Could be old news to many here..., I had not viewed it yet.

 

Held my, and my wife's attention..., brought together NY Mafia, Russian Mafia, strippers, Porky's (the movie) Vanilla Ice (the rapper), the fall of the iron curtain and its james-bond-ian post event economics, the Columbian drug cartels, Russian submarines (and nukes) fast luxury cars, helicopters, cigarette boats, and the Florida underworld..., and more, together in a movie about real bad guys, and what they got away with - in our lifetime.  It's from 2018, so you may have seen it already. 

 

However, there HAVE been successful use of subs, homemade and purchased post-cold-war surplus, to enable the drug trade, since this episode.  There is legitimate reason to be concerned..., it's not just a border that brings drugs in..., Underwater "wall"? makes one realize the futility of current ad hoc efforts and lack of unified strategy, when up against this kind of funding.  

 

 

When you can't buy a sub, you make your own, out of carbon fiber..., here's one:

 

 

 

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The true story of a British businessman unwittingly recruited into one of the greatest international conflicts in history. Forming an unlikely partnership with a Soviet officer hoping to prevent a nuclear confrontation, the two men work together to provide the crucial intelligence used to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

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Watched this British, just-before-WWII era movie.  True Story.

 

If you like history, the ancient kind, (Vikings as Early Explorers, for example) this is an interesting watch.

 

Stars Ralph Feines, Carrie Mulligan, Lily James (of recent Cinderella remake).

 

 

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OK, here's one for you opera fans.  And, there is rap in it too..., 

 

Seriously, based on a true story of retired musicians..., the end reveals ALL the cast members in the movie that are also former stars of various philharmonic orchestras and well known opera houses across the US and Europe.

 

Enjoyed it - serious drama and a comedy.  

Directed by Dustin Hoffman, and the 4 non-opera-experienced main stars are recognizable..., and good, and funny - Tom Cortenay, Maggie Smith, Bill Conolley, Pauline Collins.

 

I had to listen to Verdi's Rigoletto the next day, as the famous "quartet" piece is well known..., brought back good memories of past performances I had attended.

 

 

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OK, for something a bit more intense..., this one I watched last night was serious, and good.  Mel Gibson and Sean Penn are excellent in this true story about the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary.  This (mostly true) story spans the (US) civil war (PTSD, perhaps), 1870's London, insanity, schizophrenia, committment, reparation, and "assythment."  that last one, is a word looking up.  I did.  Interesting...

 

 

 

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7 Psychopaths.

 

Saw this one a couple of nights ago.  Twisted, and sometimes hard to follow - but hindsight pulled it all back in - or most of it.  A few discontinuities, to be sure..., but I think that was intentional.   Plenty of blood, not an action flick - more real-life type situations, with blood added.  Yes, there are 6 psychopaths..., spoiler alert - one is counted twice. 

 

Stars Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Abbie Cornish, and Tom Waits (remember him, I have a few albums...)

 

Harrelson plays ruthless mafia, and Walken is classic Walken.  Intricate story...

 

 

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Keeping you in the Celluloid Loop..., 

 

NON STOP ACTION, and stunts that rival the best James Bond film...

 

Watched this last night.  Starring Ryan Reynolds, Melanie Laurent, Adriana Arjona, Ben HArdy, Corey Hawkins and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo..., All excellent characters...

 

Did I say Melanie Laurent was in it? 😉 

 

Starting with the first flash-back..., in the first 2 minutes..., the story gets set up..., drink a Red Bull..., stay alert, at times, it can be hard to keep up..., but if you're awake, and on the edge of your seat..., you'll wonder how they pulled that off...,  Takes place around the world, from Italy to NYC to the Middle East..., good guys against bad guys...., ok, "really Evil Mot___r F___kers," as the movie calls them.

 

Looks like a setup for a series..., Could be interesting to see a second one with this story line..., there's enough for several follow-on movies.

 

 

 

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My teenage son has a habit of introducing me to movies from the 60's and 70's.

 

Last night we watched The Conversation staring Gene Hackman (one of my favorite actors)

Francis Ford Coppola movie with  John Cazale, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Robert Duvall, Teri Garr...

 

Coppola's style made me a bit uncomfortable - not really a thriller but very well done.

 

Highly recommended 

 

 

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On 1/16/2021 at 10:02 PM, Daddyjt said:

However, this one is on a whole new level.  Complicating understanding is perhaps the worst sound mix I’ve heard in a long time - mushy diffuse dialogue (often times hampered by gas masks on the main charachters),

Regarding the dialogue of "Tenet": the production sound mixer was two time academy award winner Willy Burton.  He is a rock star in that world.  The mushy dialogue seems to be a choice of Christopher Nolan. I don't know to what end he does this, but he has done it in the past, viz., Interstellar. I read that he even objected to theatre operators trying to use corrective EQ to make the dialogue more understandable.

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Nobody with Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul) as Hutch is a recipe movie with the retired CIA problem solver as the victim of a home invasion/robbery. While it is predictable, I still enjoyed it a good deal with several LOL moments. Christopher LLoyd gives a great supporting role performance as Hutch's father, and while Connie Neilsen is a bit stiff in her role as Hutch's wife, it's a role I don't recall seeing her do before. She does much better in the trophy wife roles than she does as domesticated wife. She doesn't do a bad job, just not good enough to get me completely immersed.

 

Great soundtrack to the action scenes similar to Sucker Punch.

 

 

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Surprisingly entertaining!

I've watched quite a few bad "big Budget" movies this year so didn't have very high expectations for a direct to Amazon Prime movie, but I was pleasantly surprised. Lots of action and some humour!

 

 

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Watched this from Amazon Studios, last night.  slow at first, but once you settle in, it unfolds..., having gone through similar things the main character goes through, both literally and figuratively (not for writing down here)..., this movie kept me up most of the night thinking about it, and reliving my own casket-side experience.  One can and likely will pick up widely varying and different messages - depending on your perspective and experience.  I do think it is worth watching, if nothing else, to get more people thinking, who have forgot.

 

Starring Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne, and Brian Cranston, cameo with Cicely Tyson. 

 

Basic story is the unique and unlikely rekindled relationship between three Vietnam war veterans, that all had different post war paths.  In the movie, from the first scene we learn their time when deployed in Asia was marked by some bad things they even did to each other.  The time period of the movie is 2003, timed with the capture of Saddam Hussain in the spider hole - many of us lived then, and may recall/relate to sentiment then.  The setting for the movie is back in the US where it all comes together (reunites them) when Steve Carell's son is killed in Baghdad and is on his way back through Dover Air Base.  The rest you'll have to watch the movie - on Amazon.

 

Some may be uncomfortable with this movie.  The characters develop in especially interesting ways that for me dug up some things, made me rethink some things, and poured salt and acid on some memories.  I'm sure your experience will be different as we are all different.

 

It's on Amazon Prime and available for pay per view on YouTube.

 

 

Edited by AndrewJohn
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I see a lot of great movies in this thread.  And there seems to be a possible underlying Mel Gibson theme?  Why am I not surprised?  (I've said it before--this site/ forum is just plain full of cool dudes).

 

Here are a couple that I feel don't get as much credit as they deserve:

 

This is a gem of a movie that never got the respect I thought it deserved.  I've always thought Alec Baldwin's performance was Oscar worthy.   It's cool as shite from the first lick of  Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" over the opening credits.  I think it just veered a little bit too whacky for some tastes, but I love this movie...

(EDIT: Had to choose a different scene - the opening credits scene I first embedded was age restricted and wouldn't launch).

 

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Anything David Mamet writes or directs is always worth the time - and I love that he often casts that great historian of magic (and magician himself) Ricky Jay (I have a few of his books on magic).

I love these deep plot twist movies...

 

 

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And  this is a another sleeper...  great film.  Never could figure out Hart Bochner's career.  He was great in this...

 

 

Edited by garyh
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I watched Dune on HBOMax last night, and I enjoyed it a great deal. Then I was sadly disappointed when I realized it's Part 1, and Part 2 hasn't been approved yet. The cinematography is phenomenal. 

 

dune-movie-logo.jpg?resize=768,432

 

 

 

 

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Catching up on an older movie, starring Miles Teller, Jonah Hill and Bradley Cooper.  Based on a Rolling Stone article titled "Arms and the Dudes." which was based on some foundation of a true story...

 

Pretty good entertainment, and fairly accurate description of cluster F@#k's in many places that need cleaned up..., your own observations apply here.  I recall a few scary situations like the ones in the movie in foreign lands and am glad to have lived through them..., I even shake my head in wonder..., "how the heck did I get through that?"

 

Missed it when it came out, but had wanted to see it - then time faded the want..., then saw this last night on Netflix.  I'm still thinking about it.

 

 

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Saw this a couple of nights ago..., CBGB.  The story of the origins of Punk Rock and the Punk Rock Scene in NYC at the CBGB venue...

 

Some scenes really make you cringe..., like canine hygiene in the bar, as well as the restroom..., I'm guessing those of us that lived through those years can relate, this part was easily reproduced in venues anywhere.  The movie CBGB will give you the hee-bee-gee-bee's...

 

However, I really enjoyed seeing the early theatrical recreation of the early Talking Heads, The Police, Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Blondie (Debbie Harry), and others of that genre and era, who got a foot-hold through the vision of Hilly Krystal's CBGB bar - location chosen because it was in a neighborhood where no one would complain about the noise.

 

I liked the sub-plot of Hilly building a "mutually beneficial relationship" with the biker gang to control the mafia who tried to move in and play "collector" on the rent... (you have to watch it to get that part).

 

Oh, and "CBGB" was the original vision Hilly had for a unique venue in NYC to showcase Country, Blue Grass and Blues music that he thought was missing in NYC.  And, well, that vision got replaced quickly..., The Talking Heads at their initiation into the Hall of Fame had Hilly come up on stage to thank him for their start, at the CBGB.  The bar stayed viable for well over 30 years.

 

Made me pull out some old albums I hadn't played in a while.

 

 

 

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"Copenhagen" (2002)

 

This one will get you thinking..., there's lots of speculation on what really happened in this meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr in 1941.  Regardless of your position on a meeting that no one was there to witness, the power of the event, and the potential of these two on the future of mankind is interesting to ponder.  I found (early) Daniel Craig (Heisenberg) and Stephen Rea (Bohr) with Francessca Annis (Margrethe Bohr) presentation of this story to be thought provoking.  Science and great scientists do have a conscience.  

 

If you are into the meta-physical, and the connection of quantum physics and the connected universe of consciousness, you might find this interesting.  It's an older film, by Michael Frayn, from 2002, and I couldn't find a trailer.  It's based on a play originally written for theater production.  Wikipedia article on the movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_(2002_film).  The movie is really a revisit of "ghosts" of both Heisenberg and Bohr, to Bohr's now abandoned villa in Copenhagen, well after their deaths (Heisenberg died in 1976, Bohr died in 1962.)  Both won Nobel Prizes for their work in Physics and quantum mechanics.  The dialog is well written, and one has to pay close attention to the background and shifts in time across scenes.  These two learned, researched and generated the early understanding of accelerators, splitting atoms, creation of plutonium from uranium and its generation of energy, and the potential for it both good and bad.  Hence (potentially) the reason for the meeting, and the basis for the film.

 

Of course, if one has predisposed conclusions..., the movie may not be interesting..., For me, it presented many interesting "what-if" questions to ponder, in my own path of enlightenment.

 

YMMV.  Movie appears to be available on YouTube in some longish postings (perhaps bootleg).  It is playing on Prime Video, which is where I viewed it, last night.

 

 

 

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While I cancelled my Netflix subscription a while back, I still use my son’s from time to time (part of his rent agreement, lol). 
 

anyway,  I’m about half way through Archive 81, and so far it’s OUTSTANDING. I had almost forgotten that it was possible to make a “horror” movie/show that doesn’t rely on cheap jump-scares and gore.

Archive 81 is smart, Well cast and very well filmed. It is immensely creepy with a compelling plot that makes you REALLY want to know what happens next… now I’m just hoping they don’t screw it up in the 2nd half.

Highly recommend (so far…) 


https://youtu.be/ibxKEqxARkE

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