What Movie Are You Watching?

[Hrafn]

Honestly, I agree.

Vacation is the better pure comedy, it's a little more raw, it's a touch darker - it's actually rated R. Christmas Vacation leans more into the John Hughes sentimental vibe, it's got some of the same silliness for sure, but it's way more light hearted (and rated PG-13).

Funny enough, Christmas Vacation is actually the 3rd Vacation film, I even forget this, European Vacation was 2nd (which is pretty fun, has a couple of really great moments).

If you're a fan of the 1st movie, definitely watch the 2015 sequel, Vacation, with Ed Helms as a grown up Rusty (Christina Applegate as his wife, Debbie).

Yeah, I liked the first, and laughed a lot at the 2015 sequel, cringey bits and all. I don't recall if I've seen European Vacation.

 

[Huntn]

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The Unforgivable (2021 Netlix)- A story of a woman who spent 20 years in jail for killing a cop, part of a team of law enforcement coming to evict them, her and her little sister. Now she is out, on parole, living in a halfway house, and wants to reconnect with her sister who has been adopted by a family who the parents want no part of her. I found this to be excellent, but the critics hammered it.

 

[DT]

Not a fan of the allegedly hilarious or cute Christmas movies... I have a particular aversion to Polar Express because how I even knew that film existed was when a loaned-out spare laptop (an old white polycarbonate iBook) was returned to me in January once with a DVD of said flick jammed in the optical drive.

Polar Express is __not__ on our normal rotation, in fact, it's more or less blacklisted because it's kind of terrifying.

I cannot look into the cold, deal, inhuman eyes of the Tom Hanks train conductor ... *shudder*

Yeah, I liked the first, and laughed a lot at the 2015 sequel, cringey bits and all. I don't recall if I've seen European Vacation.

European Vacation is pretty fun, it's a little more bawdy like the first movie, as always, there's a different Rusty and Audrey. It's worth a watch, we rarely watch it again, but we got like the three movies in a bundle (we already owned CV on disk, but we generally score digital copies when we can if they're a good deal).

 

[Huntn]

Finished The World Is Not Enough. Pierce Brosnan is cool, the hotties are hot, actually, fairly stellar cast: Judie Dench, Hagrid, Rumplestiltskin, Sir Lancelot, etc.

My wife got us National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I know many people love it. I walked away.

Tossed it on last night after we got home

We generally get 10-12 viewings in over the Xmas season ...

Wait a second, they walk out into the woods a couple of miles and forget a saw, but then later we see this giant tree tied to the roof of the car with dirt and roots? Where is the believability???

 

[Thomas Veil]

“Devil’s Island” (Prime). Slight (about 75 min.) suspense film about a woman inheriting an island home from her grandparents, and the locals who don’t want her there.

The main actress is not all that suited to the role, there’s more than a few dangling plot threads, and the ending is odd…but in spite of these problems it does generate some nice, slow-building suspense. C-

 

[SuperMatt]

Wait a second, they walk out into the woods a couple of miles and forget a saw, but then later we see this giant tree tied to the roof of the car with dirt and roots? Where is the believability???

Luckily the director didn’t care a whit about believability.

 

[Huntn]

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The Power of the Dog (2021)- personal drama, 2 brothers, a wife and son, sigh, slow, drab, dreary, some treachery to get it over with, 1925 Montana story filmed in New Zealand, the critics love this, the audience not so much. I was somewhere between get to the point, and let it be over. One reviewer liked the atmosphere to a horror film while giving it a positive review.

I can watch a somewhat depressing felon movie (Inforgivable) and still be drawn into good drama.

The Power of the Dog | Rotten Tomatoes

Severe, pale-eyed, handsome, Phil Burbank is brutally beguiling. All of Phil's romance, power and fragility is trapped in the past and in the land: He can castrate a bull calf with two swift slashes of his knife; he swims naked in the river, smearing his body with mud. He is a cowboy as raw as...

www.rottentomatoes.com

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

View attachment 10382​

The Unforgivable (2021 Netlix)- A story of a woman who spent 20 years in jail for killing a cop, part of a team of law enforcement coming to evict them, her and her little sister. Now she is out, on parole, living in a halfway house, and wants to reconnect with her sister who has been adopted by a family who the parents want no part of her. I found this to be excellent, but the critics hammered it.

I heard they took a compelling storyline and turned it into a big pile of meh. There's a good chance you'll forget most of the movie by Saturday.

 

[DT]

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The Power of the Dog (2021)- personal drama, 2 brothers, a wife and son, sigh, slow, drab, dreary, some treachery to get it over with, 1925 Montana story filmed in New Zealand, the critics love this, the audience not so much.

One thing I mention anytime I see low audience scores on RT, is the nature of those negative scores - here's a little sample:

Then you do a ratings history of some of these reviewers and get this:

Dennis the Menace ... 5 stars

Let me be clear, you like what you like, but some people have very specific, ummm, "taste" and so no movie like this will ever earn a good score.



I'd love to see the RT audience scores applied against a filter you setup, so I could select genres, movies I consider great, specific actors, directors, and where there was an obvious conflict, just leaves those out of the score and the content.

Like if you don't like the Godfather, if you think it insists upon itself - I don't want to hear your opinion on anything film related ...

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

View attachment 10406​

The Power of the Dog (2021)- personal drama, 2 brothers, a wife and son, sigh, slow, drab, dreary, some treachery to get it over with, 1925 Montana story filmed in New Zealand, the critics love this, the audience not so much. I was somewhere between get to the point, and let it be over. One reviewer liked the atmosphere to a horror film while giving it a positive review.

I can watch a somewhat depressing felon movie (Inforgivable) and still be drawn into good drama.

The Power of the Dog | Rotten Tomatoes

Severe, pale-eyed, handsome, Phil Burbank is brutally beguiling. All of Phil's romance, power and fragility is trapped in the past and in the land: He can castrate a bull calf with two swift slashes of his knife; he swims naked in the river, smearing his body with mud. He is a cowboy as raw as...

www.rottentomatoes.com

I sometimes find negative reviews help me appreciate a movie more. I went in aware of all the criticisms of it being slow and boring but after watching it I determined I shouldn’t have been surprised with that coming from a society obsessed with instant gratification, a short attention span, and getting everything they need to know entirely from a clickbait headline. I thought the slow pacing worked well with the tension and I was never “Got it, let’s move it along”.

I also find any movie kissing the 2 hour mark or beyond is best viewed at home where you can pause and come back to it. I don’t always do that but it's comforting to know I can. Checking the time in the theater you are pretty much screwed, not to mention you really have no idea how much is left of the movie when you factor in all the previews and commercials that proceeded it. I guess if you wanted to you could use a stopwatch app right when the movie starts.

 

[Hrafn]

Robert Downey Jr in Dr Doolittle. Fun adventure, I thought it was pretty good for a family friendly show.

 

[rdrr]

Rented The Last Duel with Matt Damon, Adam Driver, and Jodie Comer. I found the story itself fascinating, and was unaware of its background (probably zoned out in High School world history). It really showed that the victim in rape has been the accused for centuries, but more so back then women had less recourse in reporting the crime than they do today. I read that even today the accusation is still controversial in France, which just made me more curious about the story and the times. I am not sure the I would rate the movie anything more than somewhat good, but it got me to read up on a piece of history that I had little knowledge on.

 

[lizkat]

Such a long queue of movies in my list that kin and friends recommend on Netflix... I should print the thing out and throw a dart at it to make a pick. But keeping it simpler, I've just glanced through the whole thing and decided to watch the jazz docu Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool tonight.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Mrs. Veil was watching a movie on TCM the other night, and I kept looking at this actor on the right because he looked strangely familiar.

After a minute or two I figured it out. I’m not gonna name the movie because it would make it too easy, but do you know who that is?

 

[lizkat]

I kept looking at this actor on the right because he looked strangely familiar.

Yeah, he does.

do you know who that is?

No, and it will probably make me crazy rummaging through my brain, which is insufficiently armed with classic movie-watching credits for a chance in hell that his ID will come to me. Thanks a lot!

 

[Thomas Veil]

How about now?

 

[Eric]

Watched Don't Look Up on Netflix, a perfect depiction of what would happen under a Trump presidency if we were about to struck by an earth destroying asteroid.

Spoiler

Everything from firing and suppressing the voices of scientists to letting capitalists attempt to mine the asteroid instead of destroying it, even knowing it will still kill everyone. Movie may as well have been named Make America Great Again.

 

[Hrafn]

Carey Elwes and Brooke Shields in “A Castle for Christmas”. Christmas rom-com. It wasn’t terrible, just decent for what it was, although it hit enough of the right notes for my wife.

 

[Alli]

Watched Don't Look Up on Netflix, a perfect depiction of what would happen under a Trump presidency if we were about to struck by an earth destroying asteroid.

Spoiler

Everything from firing and suppressing the voices of scientists to letting capitalists attempt to mine the asteroid instead of destroying it, even knowing it will still kill everyone. Movie may as well have been named Make America Great Again.

My son just recommended that last night. Will definitely have to watch.

 

[Thomas Veil]

"A Christmas Carol" (FXM, Hulu). Forget every adaptation you've ever seen. This is way out there.

Most versions adhere so close to the book that you can recite the lines by heart. This is a psychological study of a very disturbed man who became a monster. The basic framework is here--Marley, the three spirits, etc.--but you will not see a single scene that is otherwise familiar to you. There are scenes which reference sexual depravity, and even a suggestion of witchcraft. This is "A Christmas Carol" for our meaner age.

And while I almost always rail against adaptations that range far and wide from the source, despite its changes this absolutely has the spirit and the intent of the original. Only one single item in the movie feels off, and that is the change of Bob Cratchit's wife to a minority, which isn't just lacking in historical verisimilitude, it feels like a token concession to wokeness. It's not enough to ruin the movie, though. Guy Pearce is great in the lead role, and the music and photography are appropriately downbeat. Be prepared. It's a dark movie. Very dark. Grade: A