I'm always a year or so late in watching recent movies.

A few days ago i finally watched Split...And damn, what a good movie. My faith has been restored in M. Night S. And James McAvoy impressed the heck out of me.

outta 5.

[Edited 7/9/18 23:58pm]

...on filmstruck, with commentary by scorsese and paul schrader. i figured i oughtta give it a refresher viewing having just seen 'first reformed' (i'll have to watch it again without the commentary, cuz marty just CAN'T shut up). i was hoping for more input from schrader, but his commentary was limited and was not recorded simultaneously to scorsese's.

anyhow...possibly the perfect 'american' film? sad, kind of, how relevant this movie still is.

peedub said:

...on filmstruck, with commentary by scorsese and paul schrader. i figured i oughtta give it a refresher viewing having just seen 'first reformed' (i'll have to watch it again without the commentary, cuz marty just CAN'T shut up). i was hoping for more input from schrader, but his commentary was limited and was not recorded simultaneously to scorsese's.

anyhow...possibly the perfect 'american' film? sad, kind of, how relevant this movie still is.

i watched that myself last week, after my viewing of first reformed. seemed almost necessary to revisit it. i certainly think it stands as one of the great american films of the last 50 years. and it absolutely feels completely relevant in its depictions of isolation & loneliness & mental collapse.

if you're interested, the podcast 'the next picture show' did a two episode review/comparison of taxi driver & first reformed last month. i thought it was quite a good listen myself, but i obsessively inhale podcasts...if you want to give it a listen yourself, they are episodes 132 + 133 in the link below.


https://cms.megaphone.fm/...2683832078

[Edited 7/10/18 11:59am]

Ace said:

RodeoSchro said:

MoviePass's strategy is to get 2,000,000 people who THEY HOPE AND PRAY won't go to the movies.

Here is an interview with the president of MoviePass, whose stock is now at 18 cents a share (down from 22 cents a share when I first exposed them for the bad business people they are): https://money.cnn.com/201...index.html

Highlights (or lowlights, if you're a realist), as edited by me to get rid of as much of Farnsworth's fluff as possible:

CNNMoney: How do you bring the market's confidence back to this company? It seems pretty clear that it's vanished over the last several months.

Farnsworth: I think Wall Street, the same as venture capitalists, they're used to seeing a model like this, similar to a Netflix (NFLX), where the company burns a significant amount of cash to get to profitability, but also to claim market share. The timeline [for profitability] really is by the end of this year, when you hit around 5 million subscribers, is what our model shows.

CNNMoney: How do you figure that someone who goes to movies nine or 10 times a year on MoviePass will offset the cost of $10 per month? There are markets where the cost of a movie ticket is more than $10. And AMC, on its last earnings call, mentioned that you pay $12 a ticket.

Farnsworth: AMC has no idea what we pay them, which was really interesting that they put that out there. Because, you know, that's not a true number, either.

CNNMoney: What do you pay them?

Farnsworth: You know what, we don't disclose it, but it's not $12.

CNNMoney: What kind of data you are collecting from your customers? What privacy concerns are there? How do you hope to use that data?

Farnsworth: First of all, we don't sell any of the data at all. We never do. What we do as the analytics company is, we sit there and we can tell the moviegoing habits. We know what time they go to the movies, what movies they like, what genre they like.

CNNMoney: You said were slashing your cash-burn rate by reducing the amount of fraud and abuse on your platform. But you burned through $40 million in May (up from $21 million a month earlier) and you're projecting $45 million in June.

Farnsworth: And we're projecting less in July. We think a lot of it was just that the box office itself was so big.

CNNMoney: It sounds like when the box office is doing really well, that sounds kind of terrible for you, if you've got subscribers that just want to see even more and more movies. What does that mean for your business model?

Farnsworth: Our burn rate is always affected by our growth. So the faster your growth is, the more you're going to burn, obviously. That's with most subscription companies out there. So even having such a spike in growth of subscribers is also going to burn into your cash flow as well. THAT'S A NON-ANSWER, LOL.

RodeoSchro said:

pcowley said:

Hated It.

If you are talking about "I, Tonya" then I am 100% with you.

gotta love her mother in that however.....

OK.... I was dissappointed in the Incredibles 2. Predictable plot, and I only liked the scenes with Edna.

Ant Man and the Wasp, it was slow and I tried HARD not to fall alseep... so if you want to take a greta nap during the day, this is your movie!

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom: Now this movie (which I expected to be bored) I ended up liking this movie the most of the three. I had very low exopectations for this installment but was plesantly surprised that it flowed well with great action sequences and it was not as predictable as the 1st two.

Excellent thriller, set vaguely in my neck of the woods.

luvsexy4all said:

RodeoSchro said:

If you are talking about "I, Tonya" then I am 100% with you.

gotta love her mother in that however.....

No, I don't! Watching people smoke and drop F-bombs is an absolute turn-off for me.

RodeoSchro said:

luvsexy4all said:

gotta love her mother in that however.....

No, I don't! Watching people smoke and drop F-bombs is an absolute turn-off for me.

i understand that ..but she was a trip in that movie

I kidnapped my wife and son and made them go with me to the Booze and Chow to watch a remake of "Die Hard" called "Skyscraper". Here's what I learned:

It is physically, spiritually, emotionally and morally impossible to remake "Die Hard". Can't be done.

You know what else can't be remade? This guy:



But CBS is trying it with this guy:




No.

Just NO.

I saw this horrible news a day or so before I comandeered the family for the "Die Hard" remake. I should have known better. As much as I like this guy:




He is not this guy:






And to be fair, "Skyscraper" is not being marketed as a remake of "Die Hard". But if you watch it, that is what you're going to think you're seeing. Let us compare these two movies using the RodeoSchro Set Of Mandatory Die Hard Comparison Points:

BADA** HERO WHO HAS A LAW ENFORCEMENT BACKGROUND
"Die Hard" - A given
"Skyscraper" - A given

TAKES PLACE IN A SKYSCRAPER
"Die Hard" - Where else?
"Skyscraper" - Obvs

IS A GREAT, IF NOT THE GREATEST, CHRISTMAS MOVIE
"Die Hard" - Ho, Ho, Ho. Now I have a machine gun
"Skyscraper" - NO

HAS ARGYLE
"Die Hard" - Wouldn't be a movie without him!
"Skyscraper" - Sadly lacking Argyle or any type of Argyle equivalent

SNARKY BAD COMPUTER GUY GETS CLOCKED CLEANED BY ARGYLE
"Die Hard" - Satisfyingly YES
"Skyscraper" - Snarky computer guy escapes all recrimination

MEMORABLE LINES
"Die Hard" - Yippe Ki-yay, motherf***er; Come out to the coast, we'll have some laughs; Hans, bubby - I'm your white knight; Welcome to the party, pal!
"Skyscraper" - Daddy loves who? Daddy loves who? Daddy loves who? If you can't fix it with duct tape, you didn't use enough duct tape

REASON FOR ALL THE MAYHEM
"Die Hard" - Hans Gruber - an exceptional thief - is stealing $60 million in bearer bonds and faking his own death
"Skyscraper" - Some Belgian dude screwed up and the European Mob has told him to capture some device that has their bank account information on it

BAD GUY FALLS OUT A WINDOW AND DIES WHILE LOOKING UP AT OUR HERO
"Die Hard" - Undoubtedly YES
"Skyscraper" - One does, but the really bad girl villian gets nothing worse than a kick in the face before her arrest

HERO MEETS HIS LOCAL POLICE COUNTERPART IN THE END
"Die Hard" - Of course, where would John McLane have been without Al's help?
"Skyscraper" - Uh, sort of. Some Hong Kong cop says, "Nice to finally meet you" as The Rock sucessfully leaves the building, but actually The Rock would have absolutely no idea who this guy is, as they never interacted once throughout the entire movie

LOCAL POLICE COUNTERPART KILLS MADMAN WHO EVERYONE WRONGFULLY THOUGHT WAS DEAD
"Die Hard" - Absolutely, positively!
"Skyscraper" - Sadly, there is no appearance by a bad guy everyone thought was dead

CHANCES THAT MANY OF THE CAST WILL APPEAR IN A HOLY TRINITY OF ACTION MOVIES
"Die Hard" - Why do you think I asked that question? It already happened 30 years ago!
"Skyscraper" - Slim to none, and I think I just saw Slim leaving town

"Skyscraper" is not a totally bad movie. It's just not the homage to 80's Willis/Stallone/Schwarzenegger action films that the director said it is. Instead, it's like this decade's "Pacific Rim" - a weak remake of a really good movie, without acknowledging it's a remake of a really good movie.

I rate "Skyscraper" as 2 Bill Clays out of 5 Bill Clays. You'll like the original Bill Clay a lot better.

RodeoSchro said:

EmmaMcG said:

RodeoSchro said:

I kidnapped my wife and son and made them go with me to the Booze and Chow to watch a remake of "Die Hard" called "Skyscraper". Here's what I learned:

It is physically, spiritually, emotionally and morally impossible to remake "Die Hard". Can't be done.

You know what else can't be remade? This guy:



But CBS is trying it with this guy:




No.

Just NO.

I saw this horrible news a day or so before I comandeered the family for the "Die Hard" remake. I should have known better. As much as I like this guy:




He is not this guy:






And to be fair, "Skyscraper" is not being marketed as a remake of "Die Hard". But if you watch it, that is what you're going to think you're seeing. Let us compare these two movies using the RodeoSchro Set Of Mandatory Die Hard Comparison Points:

BADA** HERO WHO HAS A LAW ENFORCEMENT BACKGROUND
"Die Hard" - A given
"Skyscraper" - A given

TAKES PLACE IN A SKYSCRAPER
"Die Hard" - Where else?
"Skyscraper" - Obvs

IS A GREAT, IF NOT THE GREATEST, CHRISTMAS MOVIE
"Die Hard" - Ho, Ho, Ho. Now I have a machine gun
"Skyscraper" - NO

HAS ARGYLE
"Die Hard" - Wouldn't be a movie without him!
"Skyscraper" - Sadly lacking Argyle or any type of Argyle equivalent

SNARKY BAD COMPUTER GUY GETS CLOCKED CLEANED BY ARGYLE
"Die Hard" - Satisfyingly YES
"Skyscraper" - Snarky computer guy escapes all recrimination

MEMORABLE LINES
"Die Hard" - Yippe Ki-yay, motherf***er; Come out to the coast, we'll have some laughs; Hans, bubby - I'm your white knight; Welcome to the party, pal!
"Skyscraper" - Daddy loves who? Daddy loves who? Daddy loves who? If you can't fix it with duct tape, you didn't use enough duct tape

REASON FOR ALL THE MAYHEM
"Die Hard" - Hans Gruber - an exceptional thief - is stealing $60 million in bearer bonds and faking his own death
"Skyscraper" - Some Belgian dude screwed up and the European Mob has told him to capture some device that has their bank account information on it

BAD GUY FALLS OUT A WINDOW AND DIES WHILE LOOKING UP AT OUR HERO
"Die Hard" - Undoubtedly YES
"Skyscraper" - One does, but the really bad girl villian gets nothing worse than a kick in the face before her arrest

HERO MEETS HIS LOCAL POLICE COUNTERPART IN THE END
"Die Hard" - Of course, where would John McLane have been without Al's help?
"Skyscraper" - Uh, sort of. Some Hong Kong cop says, "Nice to finally meet you" as The Rock sucessfully leaves the building, but actually The Rock would have absolutely no idea who this guy is, as they never interacted once throughout the entire movie

LOCAL POLICE COUNTERPART KILLS MADMAN WHO EVERYONE WRONGFULLY THOUGHT WAS DEAD
"Die Hard" - Absolutely, positively!
"Skyscraper" - Sadly, there is no appearance by a bad guy everyone thought was dead

CHANCES THAT MANY OF THE CAST WILL APPEAR IN A HOLY TRINITY OF ACTION MOVIES
"Die Hard" - Why do you think I asked that question? It already happened 30 years ago!
"Skyscraper" - Slim to none, and I think I just saw Slim leaving town

"Skyscraper" is not a totally bad movie. It's just not the homage to 80's Willis/Stallone/Schwarzenegger action films that the director said it is. Instead, it's like this decade's "Pacific Rim" - a weak remake of a really good movie, without acknowledging it's a remake of a really good movie.

I rate "Skyscraper" as 2 Bill Clays out of 5 Bill Clays. You'll like the original Bill Clay a lot better.

Great review as always. Bonus points for the "Bill Clay" part.

Thanks!

I can't type "Bill Clay" without hearing Hans Gruber say, "Clay. Bill Clay".

Based on a thread on one of my favorite automotive blogs - and based on the incredible cast - I just finished "The Cannonball Run".

The Cannonball Run was an actual coast-to-coast automobile race, founded by automotive journalist Brock Yates. It was pretty famous for awhile, famous enough that someone decided to make a movie about it.

The movie is so bad that it's good. I mean, it's REALLY bad. But check out the cast!

Burt Reynolds
Roger Moore
Farrah Fawcett
Dom DeLuise
Dean Martin
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Adrienne Barbeau
Terry Bradshaw
Jackie Chan
Mel Tillis
Jack Elam
Jamie Farr

A veritable Who's Who Of When I Was Young! And some pretty good cars too, including a Lamborghini Countach.

I really can't recommend this to anyone unless you have 1 1/2 hours to kill and want to see who was really cool 40 years ago. If that's you, then The Cannonball Run is your 3 Dean Martin Drinks out of 5 Dean Martin Drinks. Vroooooom!

Battle Of The Sexes (2017) Starring Emma Stone and Steve Carrell about the 1973 tennis match between World No 1 Billie Jean King and ex-champ Bobby Riggs. It was an interesting and enlighting film, with great performances. However, it doesn't tell the complete story about Billie and Marilyn's relationship, see Battle of the Sexes' Sugarcoats Billie Jean King's Tragic Love Affair http://www.newsweek.com/b...air-669274 I give this film a 2.5 out of 5

Just finished "Die Hard". Walked outside and it smelled like the whole city is on fire. Seriously.

I went into John McLane mode, woke everyone up (this happened just after midnight on Saturday night), and we hauled booty away. There is smoke EVERYWHERE - but no fire.

After driving around for 45 minutes, checking Twitter and various sites, it seems a field about 10 miles away is burning.

I was all ready to put away the next Hans Gruber.

Ex Machina (2014)

Futuristic film noir. It was funny watching future Star Wars combatants Dormnhall Gleeson and Oscar Isaacs go toe-to-toe.

This predated HBO's Westworld, and I couldn't help but notice some similarities.

namepeace said:

Sorry to Bother You 3/10

Wow is this movie a hot overrated mess. It reminded me of a child reciting a story.

I like seeing new movies by new writers and directors because it's great to see things done outside the box, but you also see some amateurish shit. This is some amateurish shit.

The acting was GREAT and props for that, but the writing and directing is really really bad.

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

namepeace said:

Ex Machina (2014)

Futuristic film noir. It was funny watching future Star Wars combatants Dormnhall Gleeson and Oscar Isaacs go toe-to-toe.

This predated HBO's Westworld, and I couldn't help but notice some similarities.

The dancing alone is worth watching this movie. Don’t know how well it will hold up with time, but it’s a good movie. 7/10 from me.

That was a great sequence.

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

Sorry to Bother You 3/10

Wow is this movie a hot overrated mess. It reminded me of a child reciting a story.

I like seeing new movies by new writers and directors because it's great to see things done outside the box, but you also see some amateurish shit. This is some amateurish shit.

The acting was GREAT and props for that, but the writing and directing is really really bad.

This got rated pretty high on rotten tomatoes - I still want to see it, I love Lakeith

DiminutiveRocker said:

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

Sorry to Bother You 3/10

Wow is this movie a hot overrated mess. It reminded me of a child reciting a story.

I like seeing new movies by new writers and directors because it's great to see things done outside the box, but you also see some amateurish shit. This is some amateurish shit.

The acting was GREAT and props for that, but the writing and directing is really really bad.

This got rated pretty high on rotten tomatoes - I still want to see it, I love Lakeith

i saw it this past weekend & enjoyed it a great deal. it is a little uneven in pacing, particularly in its middle section i'd say, and it's perhaps a bit overstuffed, going in a few too many directions. regardless, i thought it was great fun, highly enjoyable & unpredictable. i'm not sure i'm in agreement with the political message i think was underpinning his film, but i think boots riley made a pretty entertaining & unique movie his first time at bat. i'd say go. 3.5/5, but a very enthusiastic 3.5.

DiminutiveRocker said:

Tangerine (2015)

An absurd (meant in a good way) slice-of-life dramatic comedy set on Christmas Eve in LA.

.25

namepeace said:

Tangerine (2015)

An absurd (meant in a good way) slice-of-life dramatic comedy set on Christmas Eve in LA.

.25

That also describes "Die Hard", LOL.

RodeoSchro said:

namepeace said:

Tangerine (2015)

An absurd (meant in a good way) slice-of-life dramatic comedy set on Christmas Eve in LA.

.25

That also describes "Die Hard", LOL.

They're almost the same movie.

I'm watching one of the greatest movies ever made. A movie with a plot straight from Mount Olympus; a cast that only Karen Rea or an equivalent could have put together; characters better than all the people from "Harry Potter", "Star Wars", "Lord of the Rings" and "Old School" combined; and absolutely no back story or pop soundtrack to ruin it. I'm watching what very well may have been ther first movie I ever reviewed here. I am watching GOLD.

I'm watching "Alien Opponent"!

This isn't a live blog, although there is a DISTINCT POSSIBILITY I'll stop the movie and just riff on the many brilliant scenes. Like right now, for instance!

The Boys are Drinking at The Junk Yard and the Alien has landed. They go to investigate, not knowing that Tom, the owner of the junk yard, just got hammered to death by his pretty young wife's mother. This has nothing to do with the Alien - Tom was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he's missing, and also an Alien has crashed into the junkyard field, so The Boys go to investigate. And naturally they all have guns.

Good Ol' Junior is investigating a building, finds dead Tom with a hammer in the back of his head, and figures the Alien did it. Just then, one of his buddies starts to come around the corner and Good Ol' Junior just naturally assumes he's the Starman and blows his face off. But when he sees that he's actually killed his buddy, he says "Oh fudge. Not again!"

Not again! ZOMG if that doesn't scream "PREQUEL!" I don't know what does! But then when his other buddy shows up, he delivers an even better line!

"It was son of a bitchin' Starman, he must have used some Space Magic or something and he fired off my shotgun right into Dwayne's head. He did."

A.W.E.S.O.M.E. "Son of a bitchin' Starman" is going to be my Twitter handle, if I ever use Twitter.

Or I could use it on CB radio. How cool would it be to say, "Breaker breaker one-nine. This is the Son of a Bitchin' Starman advising you of a Smokey at mile marker 63. Now, I've got me a Ron-Day-Voo with some fine as frog hair Seat Covers in a black Porsche. Catch you on the flip side, good buddies!"

Where were we? Oh yeah - Mama has hammered Tom to death but there's a Starman where Tom's body is and without Tom's body, there is no insurance. Which was kind of the reason for hammering Tom to death in the first place. Well, that and Tom was just a bad guy. So what are the survivors to do?

Charge people to kill Starman, bring back Tom's body, and pay whomever gets Tom's body back gets $100K. They have to sign a release. The release covers "personal injuries, death, dismemberment, beheading, hearing loss, loss of eyes, night sweats, inability to trust others, lack of bladder control, bone splintering, loss of teeth, scalping, internal bleeding, etc" So starts one solid hour of the greatest horror death scenes ever put on film!

Alien worms go up a dude's nose. Crossbow shots ricochet off dirt and pass through heads. Rowdy Roddy Piper - playing a priest - attempts an exorcism of sorts. A dude gets blown up by his own grenade, because he is distracted by finding his long-lost daughter right after he'd pulled the grenade's pin.

This is just in the first 5 minutes of Starman hunting! And it gets better!

A bunch of Karate Kids show up. Kids! They don't make it. The fat kid slices all his friends in two when he accidentally trip's the Starman's booby-trap wire (my favorite scene, BTW). Then said fat kid gets beheaded, and THEN the Starman speaks through him. Three militia dudes make all the necessary hand signals, which gets them Death Via Being Tossed Fifty Feet In The Air. Thus ends the first day. Starman 20, Humans 0.

The survivors pair up and have sex. Except for Father Rowdy Roddy Piper. I think. Maybe he does.

The first couple up the next day goes out looking for their dog - and Starman - or to have some pre-hunting boinking. They get none of that. Instead they fall into Starman traps. The guy gets burned up and then turned into porcelain by his own pee. The girl is eaten by an eletronic shark.

Meanwhile Starman is busy collecting junk and turning it into a new spaceship.

Day Three dawns with a whole new set of rubes showing up to do battle with the Alien Opponent. They aren't any more successful. The football team shows up in full uniform, and so do the cheerleaders. To the tune of the Texas A&M Fightin' Aggies War Hymn, the football team rushes one of Starman's robots. I'm not kidding. Neither is Starman's robot, who beheads them all. The last guy has "E.T. Can Suck It!" written on his towel. It doesn't help. The cheerleaders fight over his head.

This prompts the baseball team to rush the battlefield. They are armed with bats. They might be able to hit the curve ball, but unfortunately they can't hit bullets.

However, it turns out that Starman's robot is not very good at wrestling, as Father Rowdy Roddy Piper suplexes it into oblivion. He didn't even need a chair or a foreign object! However, all this gets Father Rowdy Roddy Piper is a bullet to the head by one of the other competitors. For no good reason. I'm guessing Piper had a WWE event he had to get to, so he said, "Kill me, so that I can get on with my life".

But wait! There must have been a WWE delay! Because that night, Piper comes back as a zombie. He lives on despite a baseball lodged in his brain (one baseball player apparently survived the earlier attack), but then he gets chain-sawed into Heaven.

Mama is pretty mad that it's Day Three and she STILL doesn't have Tom's body, not to mention any insurance money. So she locks everyone inside the junkyard and doubles the reward to $200K. Tom's widow/Mama's daughter figures Mama is greedy and power-hungry, so they end up fighting to the death. Mama wins. And then loses.

Since everyone else is locked inside the junkyard, they figure the best thing to do is...kill each other. Most get shot, stabbed, burned or generally beaten but one guy gets a pet Alien Worm in the chest for all his trouble.

Only two people are left - the Country Bumpkin who works in the junkyard and had been boinking tom's wife, and the Weird Stripper who has a trust fund, kept a pet Alien Worm, and is an expert fighter. And also, it turns out, is Tom's daughter. There is an inconclusive fight with the Starman, but the Country Bumpkin and Weird Stripper survive.

The sun rises, Starman's spaceship takes off, and the Country Bumpkin goes to embrace the Weird Stripper. They made it! The money is theirs!

Not quite. The Weird Stripper filets the Country Bumpkin for really no good reason, except she gathers her father's body in a wheelbarrow and heads off to collect the insurance money.

Thus endeth The Best Movie You've Never Seen.

This movie is so good that even though I described almost all the stuff that happened, I never felt the need to tell you "SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!" It cannot be spoiled. It can only be appreciated.

"Alien Opponent" gets 10 out of 10. Whether that be 10 stars; 10 beheadings; 10 Alien Worms; or 10 Alien Opponents, it gets them all.

WATCH THIS MOVIE.

namepeace said:

RodeoSchro said:

That also describes "Die Hard", LOL.

They're almost the same movie.

"The story follows a transgender sex worker who discovers her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her."

RodeoSchro said:

namepeace said:

They're almost the same movie.

"The story follows a transgender sex worker who discovers her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her."

I said almost, now you're just splitting hairs.

[Edited 7/18/18 12:41pm]