Jojo Rabbit

Hulu


I don't see why this got horrible reviews unless the David Bowie purists were pissed.


A clean shaven Marc Maron was the highlight of the movie.

Terminator: Dark Fate

The Call (2020) - Netflix - Korean Movie
Two women live in different times. Seo-Yeon (Park Shin-Hye) lives in the present day and Young-Sook (Jun Jong-Seo) lives in the past. They connect with one phone call.

Baywatch - I saw this in the theater a few years ago and thought it was terrible. It wasn't any better this time. In terms of movies like this it is much closer to Chips than to 21 Jump Street. (itunes)

Shadow in the Cloud, on Hoopla

I know it came out in 2019 but the first time I saw it.

I was wondering what happened to those big Michael Bay spectacles and then found out he directed it.

It was not bad and had some rare funny moments too though the music and soundtrack was awful with not one good song.

Melanie Laurent in her underwear

Sicario (2015) — Still a fantastic crime suspense-thriller featuring great performances but no one better than Benicio Del Toro who should have gotten an Oscar nomination for that role, not to mention the direction from Denis Villeneuve. As always Roger Deakins's cinematography was brilliant. ****¾/*****

The Switchblade Sisters (1975) — A little uneven at times but still engaging 1970s exploitation thriller with fine performances from Joanne Nail and Robbie Lee and the dialogue was pretty sharp. It's one of those movies that takes a bit to accept with a bunch of juveniles being part of an organized gang, plus you have one scene of rape that kind is never dealt with. As a whole the movie was okay. ***/*****

TCM Noir Alley

Oh yeah.

Silence of the Lambs - It had probably been close to twenty years since I had seen this, but in spite of it being ripped off multiple times, I thought it held up really well. (itunes)

Capturing Mary - Pseudo sequel to Joe's Palace, which I watched earlier this year. I like both Maggie Smith (Mary) and Ruth Wilson (Young Mary), but I never really connected to this. (HBO Max)

The Darjeeling Limited Amazon Prime
Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwarzman. Directed by Wes Anderson. 2007
3 brothers re-connect during a train trip through India.

This is one of the Wes Anderson catalog titles I'd sort of dodged (based on the reviews). It's the usual Anderson "quirk"-fest, and it's about equal parts amusing and annoying. While I stuck with it, I didn't find it all that satisfying.


King of New York Arrow 4K UHD.
Christopher Walken. Directed by Abel Ferrara. 1990
Gangster Frank White (Christopher Walken) gets out of prison and immediately makes up for lost time.

Independent filmmaker Abel Ferara tried to make a more Commercial film, but ended up with yet another Cult favorite, highlighted by a terrific cast of up-and-coming talent (Lawrence Fishburne, Wesley Snipes, Steve Buscemi, David Caruso). Arrow has put together their usual prestige package and the film looks great in 4K.

Hulu

Another forgettable Nic Cage movie and Grammer speaks with a ridiculous Southern accent.

the one I won has different artwork.

It still holds up though some of the score from Hanz Zimmer sounds like the movie takes place in South America

I wish Cruise would do more movies like this again instead of Mission Impossible 25.

Hoffman was so good it is hard to image seeing him as a normal person without autism.

Netflix streaming

The scene with the baby being delivered seemed like it would never end but it set up the whole movie.

I thought this was pretty good and executive produced by Scorsese and one of the Safdi brothers from Uncut Gems is also in this.

Don't need to see any more Shia going winnie the pooh while making out with his wife.

Hulu

That was one messed up ending

Promising Young Woman (2020) — not quite sure what to make of this revenge-thriller. A little heavy-handed at times but I liked Carey Mulligan in the lead and some scenes worked, though I saw one of the twists coming pretty early on. The ending is really dark and was at least surprising. Don't think it quite deserves some of the praise (not to mention a Best Picture nomination) but still worthy of a rental. ***½/*****

In the Earth (2021)

I'm a huge fan of Director Ben Wheatley's work but I wouldn't put this film amongst his best.

While there are a few interesting pieces, none of those pieces add up to anything focused or weighty.

A Case for a Rookie Hangman
This is a Czech surreal movie directed by Pavel Juracek (who wrote Ikarie XB-1, the Czech SF movie precursor to Star Trek), loosely adapted from Gulliver's Travels (it also seems to recall Lewis Carrol's book of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). Our protagonist after pocketing a watch from the corpse of a well-dressed hare finds himself in a strange place called Balnibarbi where apparently no one talks on Monday. There are shades of Kafka's The Trial in what happens to Gulliver here before he is whisked off to the suspended island of Laputa, where other weird stuff happens to him. It doesn't quite make sense, although one can sense both personal memories and anti-establishment feelings against a crushing state are elements in the screenplay. But the B&W chiaroscuro imagery is fabulous, supporting the atmosphere of dread and strangeness, and the film moves at a fast clip. In its surreal elements, it reminded me of a later Czech movie called The Hourglass Sanatorium, which was also good-looking and hard to make sense of.

I saw the movie on Second Run's blu-ray, which boasts a transfer done from a 4K restoration of the film. It looks quite good, crisp filmic texture and great contrast. There are some notable extras including several short films made by Juracek and a group podcast discussing the movie, which plays as an audio commentary over the film but is not synchronized with the specific scenes. Recommended for people that like surreal movies which don't bother with explaining everything.

Mystery, Alaska - Haven't seen this since around when it came out. I think it would have worked a lot better as a full on comedy. As it is the drama never really works, and makes the movie just way too long. (MA)

Wife tried a new strain last night and so she put on one of the dumbest things I have ever seen: Year One with Jack Black and Michael Cera. A poor man's version of History of the World Pt 1.
I spent most of the time browsing the internet, occasionally looking up. Just so bad.

The Breadwinner. Animated. A girl in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan disguises herself as a boy to keep her mother and sister from starving. Her father was arrested and imprisoned without charge. In Kabul, if an unaccompanied woman leaves the house, she's likely to get beaten by self-appointed guardians of morality. If a shopkeeper sells her food, he'll get beaten too. And war is coming. Everyone in her family has to choose between bad alternatives. Parallel to the real-world story is the tale of a boy in the long-ago who goes on a quest to save his village. Monsters have stolen the seed grain, and he is going to try to get it back.

Instead of the fictional Handmaid's Tale, The Breadwinner shows what is really happening right now where religious zealots took control of a country. I've always been afraid of the people who think they own the One Truth.

It's a difficult movie to watch. The animation is good. The movie is excellent, but I don't think I want to watch it again.