What Movie Are You Watching?

Huntn said:
Red Notice (2021 Netflix)- Light, action, comedy heist flick. Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot. Loved by audiences, hated by critics, fun and mostly unbelievable and predictable, globe trotting adventure. The 3 actors have good rapore.

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Yes, totally unbelievable, but fun to watch.
 
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)- I dislike the villain, I dislike the premise, I think I hate the plot of this movie. By the time I realized the agenda, it was just too much for my liking. :unsure:

Rotten Tomatoes one line critic summary: The lackluster Wonder Woman 1984 made you nostalgic for the original...

lizkat said:
The French Connection, on TCM tonight. Hackman never disappoints.
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Outstanding!
 
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"The Mephisto Waltz" (Movies!)*, a '70s horror classic directed by Paul Wendkos. I like his creative use of disorienting camera angles, slo-mo and weird music, though some might find it too artsy-craftsy for their taste.

It has a great cast: Alan Alda, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Parkins, Bradford Dillman and Curt Jurgens. The story's about a famous pianist and his daughter who ingratiate themselves with a young couple who don't (at first) suspect their ulterior motives. Has strong overtones of "Rosemary's Baby", along with themes of witchcraft and perverse sex. Way better than I remembered when I last saw it 30+ years ago. B+

* Movies!, if you're not familiar, is a TCM-like channel that's usually found way, way down at the bottom of your cable lineup.
 
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“Red Notice” (Netflix). Like this streamer’s last biggie, “Army of Thieves”, it has amazing locations, great direction and an enjoyably preposterous plot, rounded out by a great cast and even several “Wonder Woman” and “Indiana Jones” callbacks. Solid B+
 
just watched the new Ghostbuster movie. it was pretty good. I don't like to find out too much about a movie I am going to watch. some good surprises.
 
"Sketches of Frank Gehry". Directed by Gehry's friend Sydney Pollack.

It's a fascinating inside look at architect Frank Gehry, who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, The Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and many more stunning buildings.
 
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On Showtime, Minari -- a film about a Korean couple, their two kids and the wife's mom, having moved from California to farmland they bought in Arkansas, and trying to shift gears from work in a poultry plant to raising vegetables for the wholesale market. Lot of tension between the husband and wife, who are from different backgrounds, and she misses a more urban and social environment. There's also disagreement between them over the inevitable connection to the rural Arkansas area's evangelical Christianity, which is in play for better and for worse during the course of the film. I liked the movie. The grandma steals a few scenes hands down, e.g., surreptitiously teaching the younger kid not only how to play cards but how to swear in Korean.
 
“Await Further Instructions” (Netflix) is an unpleasant British horror film. It starts with a son bringing his Indian girlfriend home to meet his bigoted family, and then morphs into an orgy of psychological terror as they all find themselves imprisoned in the house and predictably start turning on each other.

The problem is most of the characters are pretty despicable people you don’t want to spend much time with…not even 90 minutes. I give the movie some credit for the novel force that’s behind it all, but still…

C-
 
"The Starving Games". spoof on the hunger games, and anything of current interest. Not terrible, but not that good, either.
 
Huntn said:
It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)- This movie was clearly before my time :), but somehow I latched onto it as a teen and it’s one of my favorite stories painting a portrait of the early-mid 20th Century small town America. Great performances, an iconic Jimmy Stewart performance, especially Lionel Barrymore as conservative villIan Mr. Potter.


The Charleston
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Bedford Falls = Seneca Falls, New York: https://homeinthefingerlakes.com/george-baileys-its-a-wonderful-life-bridge/

www.foxnews.com

‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ film secrets you probably haven’t heard

There are plenty of reasons why “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which first premiered in 1946, is still considered to be one of the most popular Christmas films of all time.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
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Watching again! :)
 
“Between Two Worlds” (TCM), considered by some to be a minor classic. It’s about a group of people aboard ship who don’t know that they’re dead and are sailing to their just reward…or punishment, as the case may be. (That’s not a spoiler. That plot point is revealed ten minutes into the movie.)

There’s some interesting hokum from an “examiner” dispensing wisdom about how they all earned their fates. But the other characters’ dialogue is laughably atrocious—I mean, on an Ed Wood level of bad. I give it a D+.

Remade as a 1970s TV movie, “Haunts of the Very Rich”, which was quite a bit better.

Edit: For quite some time I've read that "Haunts" was a remake of "Between Two Worlds". Further research shows that that is not the case.

"Between Two Worlds" and an even older film, "Outward Bound" were both adaptations of a 1923 stage play by Sutton Vane.

"Haunts of the Very Rich", on the other hand, was based on an eponymous short story written by T. K. Brown, that was published in Playboy in 1971. Thematic similarities aside, "Haunts" is not related to those earlier movies.
 
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Finally going to watch Synecdoche, New York, which has been on my watchlist for years. (I've seen Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—also written by Charlie Kaufman—and enjoyed them both). Adaption, a movie about Kaufman's attempt to adapt Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief for the silver screen, is on my list as well.
 
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.
 
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