I'm watching my housemate fall asleep with a joint in his mouth.
Again.
Again.
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Whatcha watching?
- Thread starter Gorn
- Start date
Reacher! The series on Amazon Prime. I’m in season 1 and enjoying it. Recommended!
Is it entertaining? Would you recommend?
It's a perfect movie. No performance is bad. No dialogue is bad. The story is great. The pacing is great. Nothing's wrong with it. Not once criticism.
It happens almost daily, so for me, been there, done that.
The fact that it hangs,stuck on his bottom lip, is amusing however
Sequels usually are not as good as the original.
Watched the original "A Nightmare on Elm Street" yesterday. In spite of the fact that the movie is so very teen '80s, it still holds up pretty well.
I still laugh when Heather Langenkamp (playing sleep-deprived teenage character Nancy Thompson) looks in the mirror and says, "God...I look 20 years old."
It's even better knowing that Heather was 20 when the film was released.
I still laugh when Heather Langenkamp (playing sleep-deprived teenage character Nancy Thompson) looks in the mirror and says, "God...I look 20 years old."
It's even better knowing that Heather was 20 when the film was released.
I'm not gonna debate you, Gorn. I'm not gonna sit here and debate. I agree with everything you said.
If you like the more knock-about side of the Coen brothers output: go even earlier in their career, to the comedy caper they co-wrote with Sam Raimi "Crimewave".
It's completely daft, yet wildly inventive.
Certainly not for everyone - it's pretty shambolic, and awkward in places, but a ton of fun - you just have to be in the right frame of mind for it : as Bruce Campbell advises its best watched when you "put your silly hat on".
If you liked Barton Fink, you could consider The Hudsucker Proxy as a midway point between their brand of drama, and the silliness of Crimewave.
Fargo was very much in the other direction : a drama with a dark sense of humour.
The Man Who Wasn't There was closer in tone to Barton Fink - it's kind of a forgotten Coen Brothers movie, in spite of being a critical hit, and doing pretty good box office.
Inside Llewyn Davis is a straight up great movie - not overtly a Coen Brothers movie, though it has some of their touches. It's their equivalent of David Lynch's "The Straight Story".
I genuinely enjoyed Hail, Caesar! - not even close to being up there with their best movies, and maybe I enjoyed it more than expected because I went in with low expectations, but I still had a lot of fun watching it (a couple of times actually).
Individually,:
Joel made the excellent "The Tragedy of Macbeth".
Ethan made the pretty damn terrible (frustratingly so) "Drive-Away Dolls" and the promising, but ultimately annoyingly messy "Honey Don't".
Frankly, I'd skip Ethan's solo efforts.
If you want some quirky modern crime-comedy, I'd strongly recommend :
Maggie Moore(s)
LaRoy, Texas
I don't know if there was studio interference / "notes" from execs, or if Joel Schumacher lost his nerve as a director, but that movie really copped out the moment it played the mental health card, and it's revealed that Foster had lost his job a while ago.
It just smacked of letting the audience of the hook, and making it safe for them to view the events from a comfortable place.
It would have been an absolutely amazing movie, if each scenario had played out in a way that Fosters actions / reactions seemed like the most rational response under the circumstances, and that incrementally the audience was led down this path, feeling completely aligned with Foster, rooting for him the whole way - only at the end pulling the rug from under the audience, and forcing them to ask some serious questions of themselves.
The "I'm the bad guy?" line would have landed with real impact, but as it is the audience had already checked out on the character several scenes earlier, which is actually pretty messed up considering the movie played the mental health card early on, but is totally unsympathetic in terms of dealing with that (again, it's about making the audience feel comfortable - it certainly isn't commentary on the problems L.A. caused for itself at that time by turning huge numbers of the mentally ill out onto its streets, making them homeless).
There's so much of this movie that I enjoy, and find genuinely funny as satire, but it's tone is so uneven, and inconsistent - it's an incredibly frustrating film.
I didn't pay that much attention to it, I was busy laughing at the breakfast scene.
-Mike
-Mike
Thanks for the write-up - might have to check some of those out!
Just finished Fargo. Initial thoughts are that I enjoyed this more than many of their "straight" films, and is best described for my tastes as a pseudo-serious black comedy. I feel it was a good mix of black humor and serious subject matter, with my favorite aspect being the juxtaposition of the subject matter with the folksy antics of the cast. It worked on a lot of levels, and had great performances throughout, with everything just plain working. Great movie, and I'll have to watch it again some time.
I felt that this movie has so many different ways to interpret it, that you can almost pick a position and competently argue it. I wrote a paper on it in college, with the essential argument being something relating economic value to personal value and identity of a human. It's been about 20 years, so I don't recall the exact specifics, but I pointed to the fact that we don't even know the main character's name most of the film, and how he's essentially been cut off from society in all aspects now that he's lost his job. He has no identity - not even a name. I also pointed to the scene of the man protesting outside the bank about not being "economically viable" (whatever the phrase was). Prendergast (the officer) is also struggling with losing his identity/job, but in the opposite fashion. He states that according to his wife, now that he's staying on the force, his name will be "Mud". So, by retaining his job/value to society, he also retains his name. But his wife, who has checked out from society, wants to give him a worthless name with no real identity.
I'd be interested to watch this with fresh eyes and a new perspective. It's been nearly 20 years since I've seen it, and I don't recall all the nuances of the film, but I imagine these days I could make some sort of compelling argument about mental health. My gut tells me that it may be something to do with the fact that the main character is mentally ill, but nobody takes time to address that. We see only the final stages of it, and even then, he appears "normal" for a good chunk of the story - which to me says a lot. He leads a relatively "normal" life, but his illness has created all sorts of problems for him that he can't cope with. As a society, this then becomes our problem (in extreme fashion in the movie - I think there are certainly aspects of satire throughout). We as the audience only learn about this in stages, leading us to empathize with him. But they've clearly been going on for a long while. I may take the opposite argument, in that telling us he's mentally ill helps us to empathize - because he's done so many "normal" things that so many of us want to do - but know we can not. How many of us want to do some of these things, and how does that make us feel about ourselves? Are we all the "bad guy", just one single bad day away from snapping? Why is it that we, who can empathize with this mostly "normal" seeming person, root for him throughout much of the film - but upon finding out about his diagnosis - write him off? What does that say about us as individuals and as a society?
Anyway, I love a movie that can be argued, and this is one of my favorites. It's rather provocative, and lends to so many interesting interpretations. Can't say I've ever seen one that I disagree with when presented - just different takes, all of which can be true in a sense.
That's exactly what I think the screenplay was originally going for, and why I feel there were some studio "notes" that compromised that telling of the story, and the process it would have put the audience through.
That's exactly what I was hoping the movie would be, and why I find it so frustrating that there's this sort of external morality clumsily imposed on some of the scenes, that gives the audience an easy out.
But I do really like most of the movie, and for years afterwards quotes from it would get dropped into conversation amongst my circle at the time.
"Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" last night. It was better than I expected, honestly. There were a few good chuckles here and there. "Would you settle for a coma?" 
And it was bittersweet watching Rob Reiner on screen. 
And it was bittersweet watching Rob Reiner on screen. 
For folk that liked The Boys on Amazon Prime, a new series coming in 2027 explores the origin of Vought Corporation. Vought Rising is set in New York, 1950's.
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NEED to watch that. The original is one of my absolute favorites. Maybe tonight."Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" last night. It was better than I expected, honestly. There were a few good chuckles here and there. "Would you settle for a coma?"
For All Mankind is an Apple TV series that begins in the sixties and in season 5 is in the very new future having captured an iridium based asteroid around Mars, as a Mars launched expedition lands on a moon on an outer planet.
It is at times mawkishly sentimental as the story moves at uneven pace. But, every so often it offers something outstanding. Two scenes stand out: two astronauts must save the fledgling moon base by going outside with a suit made of duct tape, there heroic actions saves the base at the cost of their lives; and in the latest episode a scene creates the visual for Alien tagline, In Space No One Can Hear You Scream as woman screams silently in her helmet.
So it is these days that YouTube has as much entertainment value as $$$ productions on TV.
It is at times mawkishly sentimental as the story moves at uneven pace. But, every so often it offers something outstanding. Two scenes stand out: two astronauts must save the fledgling moon base by going outside with a suit made of duct tape, there heroic actions saves the base at the cost of their lives; and in the latest episode a scene creates the visual for Alien tagline, In Space No One Can Hear You Scream as woman screams silently in her helmet.
So it is these days that YouTube has as much entertainment value as $$$ productions on TV.
