JeffTheAlpaca

The closest thing to watching baseball right now.

Remember watching part of this on a plane trip in the mid 2000's and then had the desire to watch it in full at home

Maybe Singapore Airlines the only airline to show movies like this and Superman 1978 on a small screen on the back of a plane seat.

Wiford Brimley as the coach cracked me up.

I am tempted to buy the 4k though this is old and looked better than the Truman Show which came out in 1998 on Blu-ray.

I still have the box set from Best Buy that came out in 2007 with the baseball cards and hat.

asianxcore

Sword of Trust (2019)

A spice of Social Commentary with the pacing of a 1990s Indie/Hangout film. Enjoyed the first half but didn't feel similar about the second half of the film.

Loved Marc Maron's performance.

asianxcore

Frozen (2013)

Oddly enough, this was my first time viewing of the film, as I had seen/heard bits & pieces of this film over the past 7+ years.

Wasn't a huge fan of the talk-singing portions but the full-blown out songs such as "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" & "Let It Go" were wonderful.

Enjoyed many of the characters including Olaf.

I also laughed way too hard anytime Weselton was mentioned.

Jaymole

You should check out the director's first film Krisha for another film that you will make you glad your family is not like that.

LorenzoL

Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)

I found it enjoyable revisiting the characters along with the new additions of Nevada, Madison and Berkeley to the movie.

EddieMoney

Dark Waters - two thumbs up

Goonies85

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Watched the Fincher version again and still loved it just as much as the first time I watched it. Then rewatched it with the commentary. Fincher really gives some of the best commentaries. I don't think he did one for Gone Girl, but really wish he did. He's just always full of insight and talks about story, characters, actors, and all sorts of technical things (yet never rally bogs the viewer down into technical jargon). Also loved his commentary on Zodiac, which is probably not only be his best commentary track, but also his best movie. Intend to watch the second disc full of documentaries and featurettes later on in the week...And as an aside, I absolutely loved Rooney Mara in this, and I really, really wish that Fincher and her had followed up and done the sequels, but oh well...Guess it wasn't meant to be...

Blair Witch - I remember hating this movie the first time I watched it, but decided "what the hell?", I have a lot of respect for the filmmakers Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, so I'll give this a shot, only this time with the commentary track. I was also intrigued once I heard that the track was recorded about two weeks after the film was released, once it kind of bombed and was panned by critics. They actually come across as very self-deprecating, although I'm still confused as to why they thought their approach to the movie would work, especially given the extremely, extremely weak cast. The movie is just altogether horrible...yet, the commentary track is a pretty decent listen and I still like the two filmmakers.

The Front Runner - Again, watched this with the commentary track this time. I really like the movie, but thought the commentary track was just okay. Jason Reitman came across as a little, little obnoxious and full of himself. And there were certain things I didn't like that he said, mainly regarding how he was trying to be all "fair and balanced" with regards to Gary Hart and the media...I won't say what his position was (cause this isn't the Political Thread), but I kind of completely disagreed with what he said...I would say this is one of the weaker commentaries I've heard in the past little while.

L Everett Scott

Plunkett & Macleane...


...is one of those movies, if the Metacritic and RT scores are to be believed, that critics didn't care for but the typical moviegoer rather enjoys. I might be able to pass myself off as a professional critic if y'all squint really hard when looking in my direction, but that actually has nothing to do with why I side with the pros.

P&M has a pretty nasty opening 20 minutes where they throw in grave robbing, torture by eye trauma, smuggling valuables in someone's bowels, and then retrieving said goods. The film also slips in an anachronistic song that's bizarrely retro and modern at the same time. Everything is dull in this version of 18th century England; that may have been historically accurate, but it brings down the mood of the movie, which is supposed to be an adventure.

Robert Carlyle and Jonny Lee Miller are decent as P&M, but they're handcuffed by a lifeless script. JLM shows flashes of the flair needed for a romantic take on highwaymen, but given how everything is just weighted down, he needs to go a lot bigger to breathe some life into the film.

And oh yes...there's a big ballroom dance...it's 1748...why do we hear club beats under the traditional music? And why is there a robbery montage that's accompanied by techno?

I know this movie had horrible distribution in North America back in '99, but I'm not convinced with a proper theatrical release that it would've been a hit considering how stacked that year was for movies.

This is a film I taped off the TV on VHS back around 2000. I never did watch the recording and only saw this for the first time a couple of days ago. It wasn't worth the wait.

TheMovieman

GoldenEye (1995) — Really solid entry into the series with Brosnan, who is personally my favorite Bond, is great. The plot is on the thin side but is helped having Sean Bean as the sinister villain and of course Famke Janssen makes for an amazingly sexy psychopath with, ahem, incredible thighs. ****/*****

JeffTheAlpaca

Thanks

JeffTheAlpaca

Not exactly in my wheelhouse but checked it out for Ronan and Gerwig and it was not that bad.

Probably not crazy to say this was a lot better than the 1994 version.

asianxcore

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Love this film. I've yet to grow tired of it.

asianxcore

The Isle (2000)

Although I haven't watched any Kim Ki-duk films made after 2013, I do appreciate much of his work up until then.

A tale of sex, power & jealousy with a dash of self-mutilation strewn about.

Re-visiting this film still felt jarring and eerily beautiful.

L Everett Scott

The Red Balloon (1956)


This is a delightful story of innocence and friendship. I can completely see why this film won an Oscar for Best Screenplay despite being a short and having only about 20 words of spoken dialogue throughout, none of which were in English. I don't think such a feat is going to be repeated, but we just had a foreign language film win Best Picture, so never say never.

TheMovieman

To Catch a Thief (1955) — Fluffy mystery-romance-thriller excels thanks to the wonderful charms of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. For me, this is a lesser Hitchcock film but still had plenty of fun and entertainment value even though there's nothing really noteworthy in terms of the story or any particular scene. ***¾/*****

JeffTheAlpaca

Forgettable and nothing special

JeffTheAlpaca

Emily Ratajkowski should stick to modeling

asianxcore

Queen & Slim (2019)

Appreciated the film's cinematography as well as Daniel Kaluuya & Bokeem Woodbine's performances.

I might be in the minority on this but I felt Jodie Turner-Smith's performance was pretty flat. Most of her lines sounded like they were read straight off a cue card.

Also thought the film dragged fairly hard in its second-half.

Goonies85

Ditto. Wanted to love this movie, given its talent behind the scenes but I was just left with "meh". It's an okay movie but really nothing special...It was okay...Worth a watch but that's about it...

Goonies85

Blue is the Warmest Colour - I know, since, that the two lead actresses had a hard time on the movie and I can respect that, but it's just a really great movie. They are phenomenal in it, and its a very, very touching movie. Every time I hear the Beach House song from the trailer I think of them. It might be a bit long, but I can't get enough. Just a great movie. The two lead actresses are just amazing...

L Everett Scott

I don't remember off hand if I've delved into Eastern European cinema before, but the National Film Institute of Hungary has a number of films available for free streaming so I thought I'd give The Fifth Seal a try.


The film starts off with four friends--a book seller, a watchmaker, a carpenter, and a barkeep--having drinks and shooting the breeze. During the course of their discussion, we find out they're in Budapest during WWII when fascists had come into power.

They talk for a good while before the watchmaker poses a philosophical question--what if you had a choice of reincarnating as one of the two people: a powerful but completely amoral slave owner or a slave who'll suffer his entire life? The answer seems to be obvious for anyone who wants to avoid perpetual torment, but the watchmaker adds that the slave is able to get through his days in the knowledge that he has a clean conscience since he's wronged no one and is therefore morally superior to the owner. The men part for the evening and a couple of them reach decisions about which they would choose.

The next day, fascist troops arrive at the bar and take the four friends away for questioning. During their confinement, they are faced with a moral dilemma very similar to the hypothetical question posed by the watchmaker.

The Fifth Seal takes its time getting to the central philosophical question. In fact, about the first 40 minutes or so consist of idle chatter...lots of it, in fact. Anyone not accustomed to foreign language films or movies that are really dialogue heavy is going to find the first act of The Fifth Seal tough going because it's like a very talky stage play...in Hungarian. I have to admit that this first part had rather limited appeal for me because I wasn't terribly interested in the lengthy conversations the men were having. Maybe other folks here are interested in brisket recipes and whether or not to cook steak with garlic, but my attention wanders when discussions like that come up.

The second act when the men finally leave the bar (that doesn't happen until close the hour mark in the film) and go back to their wives, mistresses, and charges still didn't set my world on fire. You get to listen to a couple of the characters talk about the slave owner/slave question with their significant others (which becomes important later). You also get to see one man's alcohol-fuelled dream which is based on the disturbing paintings of Hieronymus Bosch (which are shown briefly earlier); I'm pretty sure the dream sequence does figure into the themes of the movie, albeit obliquely.

It's the final act where the men are held captive by fascists that the movie takes flight for me. The parts that came before set up the ordeal that the friends go through at the hands of their captors and the discussions between the fascists about what they want to achieve by rounding up innocent people will leave a lot of viewers appalled or even outraged. Having learned about the four men, you'll find the climax of The Fifth Seal engrossing and disturbing in equal measure.

This movie is a tough sell because of the dense first act which has so much dialogue and no change in setting. If you're able to get past that, it gets rather harrowing. by the end.

Anyone wanting to give Hungarian films a try can check out this movie or a few others free at this site:

https://filmarchiv.hu/en/news/hungar...-free-to-watch

Why So Blu?

Bamboozled
Arrival

JeffTheAlpaca

I forgot I saw this before

It started out greet but petered out near the end

Not horrible but not great either.

TheMovieman

IDK, maybe because my expectations weren't terribly high, it was exactly what I thought it was, fun if not forgettable entertainment, kind of like Hard Rain or Lake Placid.

Why So Blu?

The Beastie Boys Story