I'm sick and obviously the only one up this early on New Year's Day so here's our first thread. I wish you health, happiness and the best movies this year!

I hope you feel better sooner than later.

bird box.

another (post) apocalyptic film that fails to deliver in the final scenes
but the ride toward the end was pretty sweet and intense. good stuff
most of the way through. especially the acting was very good in most
parts of the film.

purely because of the so-so ending i'm gonna give it a 7 out of 10.

I'm going to just mention a few we've watched in the past couple of weeks, since during the holidays there is little original programming on television.

I started Wrong Turn, and quit after 20 minutes. It's a hillbilly cannibal gore porn flick, at best. Zero stars.

Bird Box good, and felt like another version of A Quiet Place (which was superior if you're comparing the two for similarities).

Very recently we've also watched both Bad Santa and Paddington movies. All very good and fun.

Unsane, shot entirely on an iPhone 7+ using the FiLMiC app by Steven Soderbergh, has a scary premise, and is relatively well played out. (They didn't crop the aspect ratio so the black bars on the left & right are normal.) Claire Foy was really good in it, and Jay Pharoah was a surprise performance as an alleged opioid addict. I do think there was one reveal early in the film that spoiled the story between Foy and a hospital employee. If they had held that surprise until later, it would have had more suspense. But it's still worthy of a watch.

Today, I'm watching Stigmata.

Thanks for the well-wishes! It's Wednesday, January 2, 2019 and I feel almost like myself. At least after three days of absolute agony, I'm getting better. Hooray!

Pro Tip: Don't get sick over the New Year's holiday. Here are several convincing reasons why to not do this:

1. There aren't any doctors' offices open on New Year's Eve. So your loving spouse will first try the online medical video portal so you can get screened online and then prescribed corrective medicine online. Guess what? Medicine is an off-line business. I never actually got a video consultation - it came via the phone. Do you how many medical professionals will prescribe antibiotics and codeine cough syrup over the phone? Yep - NONE. It won't matter how sick you sound - they've heard it all before from 10,000 addicts. You aren't getting any real medicine.

2. So on New Year's Eve at 5:00 PM you have to go to the Redi-Clinic at the grocery store. A step up from the online deal, but not by much. You won't see a real doctor but at least they'll be wearing scrubs and a white coat. They will mis-diagnose your viral upper respiratory infection and your dry heaves (that you had twice! TWICE!) as a "cold". Despite your statement that you cough all night and need prescription cough medicine in order to sleep, they'll only prescribe you those cough pills. They don't work but again - ain't no grocery store doctor gonna prescribe codeine cough syrup to a stranger.

3. Your night of misery will begin and by 11:59 PM you'll think you're finally ready to sleep. One minute later - a war starts outside your window. Holy MOLEY. I was too weak to look outside but I'm sure people around us had military-grade explosives. I'm not kidding. Have you ever heard fireworks go off in a mountain range? It's awesome - the sound carries forever. Apparently Houston sprouted a mountain range that night because that's exactly what it sounded like outside. And it sounded like that until at least 2 AM. Yay 2019, I love you so much.

4. You wake up the next morning and it's a new day - and a new year! And NOTHING AT ALL is open ANYWHERE. You, my friend, are on an island and it's not Gilligan's. It's The Island Of The Sickly, population you. The only saving grace is football or binge-watching TV. Believe it or not, I chose the latter because I wanted to see "RENO 911!" and "The Twilight Zone". They were great! Not so great though were the same three commercials played over and over and over and over and over. At one point I almost switched to The Hallmark Channel, just for some new commercials (BTW, The Hallmark Channel is still showing Christmas movies. WTH?!?)

5. You go to bed the night of January 1. You thought all the fireworks were used on New Year's Eve. You were wrong

6. Awakening on the morning of January 2, you're feeling better. Probably because the doctor's office is open and you have an 11:15 AM appointment. Thank you, loving spouse! And I am VERY sorry for now having given you my virus. I will take care of you!

On that happy note, let's review my first movie of 2019!

Except...it's not really a movie.

It's "Springsteen on Broadway" and it's on Netflix.

This is a very hard review to write. And not because "SOB" isn't good - it is (ZOMG "Springsteen on Broadway" is too long to type but look what it abbreviates to!). It is the ultimate manifestation of the old saw "The book was better than the movie". Let me tell you what "SoB" is (that looks better, doesn't it?).

It's a Broadway adaptation of Springteen's book, but with some acoustic songs added. That's it. It is NOT a concert or show. As Prince said during The Rainbow Children tour, "If you're coming here hoping to get your Purple Rain on, you're in the wrong place". Bruce doesn't quite say that - and he is going to play, and he's going to play well - but he isn't going to get you dancing in the aisles to the hits. The music isn't played that way. Not even "Born to Run".

Now, I will confess - I've never been to a Broadway show. I haven't been to that many plays at all (surprise!). I'm guessing that dancing in the aisles at a Broadway show is verboten, and that may be why Bruce decided to play everything darkly.

"Darkly" describes how Bruce paces the show. Uplifting stories are few and far between There are a couple laughs but most of the show isn't very....ummm, bright. (I had to think for two minutes for a word there, and "bright" was the best I could do.) The book however, sets a far different tone. The stories Bruces tells with more than a little melancholy on stage come across differently on the written page. Or maybe I just read them and incorrectly interpreted them that way. I don't know.

But what I do know is that the first 200 pages of Bruce's book, which takes us up to his signing with Columbia Records, read like a whole heck of a lot of fun. Those are 200 of the best pages I read in 2018. Not the same when you hear it from the man himself, which was mildly disappointing.

Don't let me mislead you, and maybe I should have said this right upfront - if you haven't read the book, and you're a Springsteen fan, you're going to love this show. You really will. Bruce is a masterful storyteller. I don't know which performance this was (he did about 250 of them) but it flowed like a conversation between Bruce and you. He was great.

Some of the highlights for me were the performance of "The Wish" (it made me cry, it always makes me cry, even when I play it live I cry when I get to the last few lines).

"Born in the USA" was tremendous for many reasons. The set-up is tremendous. But the performance is other-worldly. Bruce does it with a slide on a 12-string but look closely - the two G strings are missing. They aren't there. I'm pretty sure it was because he didn't want to tune them up to G# and bring in that high note, which makes sense given the texture of the performance. But I've never seen anyone remove the G string, let alone two of them.



I think I'll look for old performances of that on acoustic guitar and see if he removed the G string. The first time I saw him play it acoustically was in Cleveland in 1998. It was unforgettable then and it still is. EDIT: I found a Springsteen performance of it from 1998. I had to look close but sure enough - no G strings!

What blew me away the most though were the duets with his wife Patty Scialfa. They were so good together. I cannot imagine how much fun it would be to sit down with your spouse every night and sing songs together like that. When I read that Patty appeared for two songs I was disappointed but boy was I wrong. I think it's worth watching "SoB" for those two songs alone. The vibe is absolutely awe-inspiring.

The other part that was awe-inspiring was the end. SPOILER ALERT. HUGE, GIGANTIC, TITANTIC, MAJESTIC, FANTASTIC SPOILER ALERT.

Seriously - if you haven't seen this and want to, DO NOT READ THE NEXT PART. In fact, I'll make it so that if you want to read it, you'll have to highlight it with your cursor:

***************************************************************

His recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and his wish for God's blessings on all of us, broke me down. As much as Bruce has used religious metaphors in so many songs, I was NOT expecting that. I just wasn't . Bruce has kind of said that he USED to be religious due to his upbringing but he's never confirmed it (that I know of or have heard). He always seemed to leave the question open and as a man of faith myself, I always prayed that he too was a man of faith. Maybe I was ultra-emotional because of the 5 liters of non-codeine cough syrup in my body, but I just lost it. I was so happy. I hope that makes you happy, too.

***************************************************************

BTW, that ending is NOT in the book.

So, here's the deal: (1) if you're a Springsteen fan, or at least a fan of music and artistry, watch this; (2) if you haven't read the book, don't read it until you've watched this first. But definitely DO read the book (at the very least, the first 200 pages although the 300 that follow are good too); and (3) if you have read the book, understand that this is only one interpretation of it.

There are no flaws in this show. Well, OK - there's one. Bruce's t-shirt. Dang, somebody go to Walmart and get that guy a better black t-shirt. But the t-shirt also belies another point - it's never darkened with sweat. This may be the only gig Bruce has ever played where he didn't break a sweat.

On the outside, at least. But there's a LOT of sweat broken on the inside.

"Springsteen on Broadway" gets 5 I Hope Rosalita Was In The Audiences out of a possible 5 I Hope Rosalita Was In The Audiences.

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[Edited 1/3/19 7:36am]

The Sickness, Day 5.

I am now too sick to go to work but not sick enough to have to lay in bed. And since I've apparently infected my wife, she can't go to work. Out of sympathy and an abundance of caution, my Favorite Mother-in-Law stayed home, too. So it's just us three biddies at home on a cold and rainy day. Yay me!

"You did this to us! Order us a movie!" they politely asked. I ran through a couple of trailers for them but when they saw Blake Lively's closet in the trailer for "A Simple Favor", I knew my fate was sealed.

It was not a fate worse than death. But close.

The movie starts off with an AWESOME opening song. Here it is, you should enjoy it and then go do whatever healthy people get to do these days:



The movie starts out by telling us that Anna Kendrick is a mommy blogger! (That's a hip reference from a MUCH BETTER mommy-blogger movie called "Mom's Night Out") The movie ends with this perfect summation from Wikipedia: "Stephanie's vlog has one million followers and is being turned into a morning show, and she has also become a part-time private detective".

If you can buy that, then this is the movie for you!

I, however, could not buy it. The movie tries too hard and doesn't know what it is. Comedy? Thriller? Sex tape? I think "French Farce" is what they were going for but couldn't fully commit because the vast majority of Americans aren't going to get a French Farce.

Want some spoilers? Read on!

If you are a mommy-blogger, or are thinking about being a mommy-blogger, then whip up some martinis and laugh along with the girls. The exciting world of mommy-blogging awaits you!

Should you be a rational person, and have access to said martinis, then drink enough of them and this movie might entertain you. You're going to need several martinis, though. Like I said, they were going for French Farce here but just couldn't fully commit. You'll have to overcome the film makers' lack of committment with gin.

I figured out the deal real early because Blake Lively mentioned she had a sister. Then later, her husband said she was an only child. So after they found the body in the lake, I immediately knew who it was. Who wouldn't?

Finally, a special note about the ending. It's stupid. I'm talking about when the stay-at-home dad runs over Blake Lively. I mean, come on. The movie spends two hours trying to clever in six different ways and then the climax is a dude in pajamas running over a murderer with his silent hybrid? Ugh.

"A Simple Favor" is not bad but it's certainly not good. There's really no reason to watch it unless you're just dying to see Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively make out. So we'll give this movie a rating of 1.5 Hip French Songs out of 5 Hip French Songs. Blog away, mommies!

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[Edited 1/3/19 6:36am]

onlyforaminute said:

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. 3/5 a handful of short stories of the old west by the Coen Brothers, need I say more. Funny, one, others really sad.

coming from joel and ethan, it disappointed me a little bit, but it was still good.

I didn't know a new movie thread was started. As soon as I watch a movie in January, I'll post here.

IstenSzek said:

onlyforaminute said:

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. 3/5 a handful of short stories of the old west by the Coen Brothers, need I say more. Funny, one, others really sad.

coming from joel and ethan, it disappointed me a little bit, but it was still good.

I wish I had a warning because the 1st story gave the impression it was going to be a bit more tongue in cheek giggles, but a couple of those stories, I thought I was going to need therapy afterwards, they were just plain realistically heartbreaking.

onlyforaminute said:

IstenSzek said:

coming from joel and ethan, it disappointed me a little bit, but it was still good.

I wish I had a warning because the 1st story gave the impression it was going to be a bit more tongue in cheek giggles, but a couple of those stories, I thought I was going to need therapy afterwards, they were just plain realistically heartbreaking.

that one about the traveling performer really was brutal

and the one with the yapping little dog was so sad

[Edited 1/2/19 15:36pm]

IstenSzek said:

onlyforaminute said:

I wish I had a warning because the 1st story gave the impression it was going to be a bit more tongue in cheek giggles, but a couple of those stories, I thought I was going to need therapy afterwards, they were just plain realistically heartbreaking.

that one about the traveling performer really was brutal

and the one with the yapping little dog was so sad

[Edited 1/2/19 15:36pm]

Yep, I had to divert my attention a bit after those 2, too much reality. The last one I enjoyed and was well done, I laughed at the trapper, what a talker, was mystified by the little diddy, held my breathe as the realization came, but I seriously don't get the point of the "package" they carried up the stairs.

onlyforaminute said:

IstenSzek said:

that one about the traveling performer really was brutal

and the one with the yapping little dog was so sad

[Edited 1/2/19 15:36pm]

Yep, I had to divert my attention a bit after those 2, too much reality. The last one I enjoyed and was well done, I laughed at the trapper, what a talker, was mystified by the little diddy, held my breathe as the realization came, but I seriously don't get the point of the "package" they carried up the stairs.

yeah, that talking in the coach, i enjoyed that one

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Shame they didnt make the whole movie on that first act. It got weaker with each act...

[Edited 1/2/19 16:59pm]

TheFman said:

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Shame they didnt make the whole movie on that first act. It got weaker with each act...

[Edited 1/2/19 16:59pm]

Rating?
It did feel bait and switch like, but some of the other stories were good too. They all had a moral or meaning when you think about them. I was already 4 stories in before I understood to read at least the last sentence on the page before it turned.

roma (2018) 3.5/5 i feel like there may be a bit of public shame involved in admitting i didn't completely love roma. perhaps if i'd had the forced focus of a theatre experience, i might have come out feeling differently, but like most, i watched this on netflix, & i found the first 90 minutes of this was a dreary, unengaging bore. i would have said prior to this that cuaron was incable of being boring, but bored i was.

it looks great, of course. there is absolute beauty in this film. but everything was at a distance. the b&w made it feel detached. the meandering, minor key moments were fine, but i always felt at arm's length. & it's just too long, i feel. it's not absurdly long, but it was too long for me to stay engaged with it all the way through.

there are major moments that come in the last third, but i was completely emotionally deadened to the impact by that point, & i was left completely unaffected, even indifferent.

the predator (2018) 1.5/5 what in the actual fuck is this shit? shane black made this, not paul anderson (the bad paul anderson, i mean, not the good one). how is this so bad?

i re-watched singin' in the rain first thing new years morning, partly to rinse the mental residue of the predator out of my mind, mostly because it seemed like a good way to start off the year. i think you could make a solid case for the sequence from moses supposes through singin' in the rain being the greatest patch of film ever made. 5/5

the red shoes (19480 5/5 for the first hour, i thought that i might not be completely sold on its greatness, but by the time we get to the ballet sequence, i was 100% sold, and from that point i needed no convincing that the red shoes deserves its reputation as a masterpiece. while i'm a person who has no interest in such things - i'd rather die than go to the ballet - this shows that a great film can take something you think you have no stake in & make it seem like the most important thing in the world.

[Edited 1/2/19 19:20pm]

BlacKkKlansman... powerful ...dug it

3.5 stars

damosuzuki said:

Roma 4 / 10

The Sisters Brothers 7.5 / 10

The House That Jack Built 5 / 10

Bad Times At The El Royale 7.5 / 10

Birdbox 6.5 / 10

Fahrenheit 11/9 7.5 / 10

Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle 7.5 / 10

Johnny English Strikes Again

a bit of harmless fun... the virtual reality scene alone was worth watching the movie for

3 stars

After acquiescing to the ladies' fervent desire to see Blake Lively's closet, I knew that I'd saved my ace for this evening. Because the movie I wanted to see was "Bad Times at the El Royale".

What a GREAT movie!

As long-time readers of mine know, there is a thing called The RodeoSchro Theory of Inverse Movie Review Length. Or at least, there is now. Plus, since you've gotten three paragraphs into this, you are now a "long-time reader of mine". Welcome to the club!

The RodeoSchro Theory of Inverse Movie Review Length postulates that the better a movie is, the shorter my review. And vice versa. This review may be the exception that proves the rule, because honestly I just want to go on and on and on, gushing about how much I liked this piece of cinematic art.

I like it so much I'm wagering that not only is it the best movie I've seen so far this year (which is only 2 days long as of my viewing), it's the best movie I am going to see in all of 2019.

A review really isn't appropriate. What would be better would be to discuss the film with people who liked it as much as I did. If that's you, then let's do it!

"Bad Times at the El Royale" gets 9 Charles Manson Wannabes out of 10 Charles Manson Wannabes. If you've seen the movie then you know that isn't as bad as it sounds. If you haven't seen it, then see it!

Brendan said:

damosuzuki said:

the red shoes (19480 5/5 for the first hour, i thought that i might not be completely sold on its greatness, but by the time we get to the ballet sequence, i was 100% sold, and from that point i needed no convincing that the red shoes deserves its reputation as a masterpiece. while i'm a person who has no interest in such things - i'd rather die than go to the ballet - this shows that a great film can take something you think you have no stake in & make it seem like the most important thing in the world.

Very well said. The cynic says, “I like to live life, not watch it.” But this is part of real life. Movies can sometimes put you in a time and place so acutely that you’re placed in shoes you thought you’d never wear, or perhaps barely even knew existed.

had to think of your comments while watching the documentary 'minding the gap' last night. minding the gap tracks the lives of skateboarding teenagers into their early adult years. i don't particularly like skateboarding, & i'll usually cross the street to avoid skateboarding teens. i would never expect a doc about skateboarding kids to be one of the best things i've ever seen in my life, but it is one of the saddest, most frustrating, moving & ultimately uplifting films i've ever seen.

minding the gap (2018) 5/5

Bad Times at the El Royale
and

The Sister Brothers

did both dissapoint me, especially 'Bad times'.
In neither movie much is happening; you're waiting for 'the big thing' but there's no such thing to come.
Bad Times looked like a movie from a writer/director that tried to hard to impress, tried to hard to copy some similar movies that did succeed in the past - only this story is absolutely going nowhere. The end was not an ending, it just showed the obvious. If there was one movie in need of a twist, it was this one.

Sister Brothers was slightly better, but also here not really much was going on. The end did save it a bit, no matter how ordinary. But to think that the spilling of a barrel was 'the' moment of the movie... not strong enough!

damosuzuki said:

I enjoyed that movie a lot actually...

sonshine said:

A Simple Favor - 2/5