Green Book - because my better half made me

Well, it took me from first till last minute and yes it deserved its Oscar imo. If only every movie I'm watching could reach this level...!

EmmaMcG said:

Went to see Captain Marvel again, this time with my daughter. Seeing as I was one of only 5 people in the screening the first time I saw it, I was curious to see if it would feel different seeing it again now that its released properly. And it does, kind of. The Stan Lee tribute at the start got a good reception and kind of set the tone, I think. Like, how can you actively dislike a movie after that. My daughter loved it. Absolutely loved it. I don't think she's enjoyed a movie that much since Coco. Which is saying a lot. So if Marvel were looking at bringing in young girls to their typical audience, then I'd say Captain Marvel has been a major success. My daughter has a new favourite superhero, I have my costume for Halloween and Hollywood must now realise that with Black Panther and Wonder Woman also doing big business, not every superhero has to be a white man. Although I'm quite partial to a bit of Robert Downey Jr and Ben Affleck.

I LOVE that Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are superhero role models for girls!

DiminutiveRocker said:

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

LadyLayla said:

4.5/5

Maggie's performance was to her usual excellence. The story is haunting. The last line, "I have a poem, I have a poem" was so visceral as the boy is being attended to as the victim of a kidnap and the audience knows under the circumstances of the child's environment, his gift may never come to fruition.

I tried watching this I know kindergarten teachers. Just too weird and disconnected from reality. Couldn’t watch half of if before having to shut it off.

The monotony of her life was it's own character (yeah I know that sounds pretentious). I saw this on a trans Pacific flight. I don't think I would have invested the time if I were at home...too many distractions.

blue my mind (2017) 3/5 '15-year-old Mia faces an overwhelming transformation which puts her entire existence into question.'

a puzzling movie, in that it felt pretty great in some ways if perhaps a bit self-serious, seemed like it was creating a coming of age/self-revulsion story on the level of thelma or even raw, but it worked its way to a cronenberg-style body horror ending that seemed completely out of step with what had come before & really underwhelming to everything it had been building up to.

it's good enough, & certainly well made in most ways, but it seems so odd to me that the creators would do all that work, do such good things in my eyes for something so ultimately silly. worth a look if the idea of a lesser raw is appealing to you.

captain marvel 2.5/5

lower tier marvel, i'd say, one of their worst perhaps. quite a disappointment, as i'd felt they were on a mostly great winning streak since civil war. this is flat, a bit plodding & contains predictable & far too on the nose music choices. not offensivly awful, but terribly bland & block-buster generic to me.

the cat is the star of the show.

EmmaMcG said:

DiminutiveRocker said:

I LOVE that Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are superhero role models for girls!

Superman (specifically, Christopher Reeve's Superman) is and always will be my favourite superhero. But it's nice to have an alternative. 21 years ago, when I was my daughter's age, there was no female superhero movies with the exception of that really dodgy Supergirl movie. But it was clear that the major studios just didn't have the confidence or interest to make one. Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel aren't perfect movies. By any means. But they're proof that good, female led superhero movies can be as successful as the men.

Toally agree - for me, Christopher Reeves was the best incarnation of Superman, bar none.

damosuzuki said:

captain marvel 2.5/5

lower tier marvel, i'd say, one of their worst perhaps. quite a disappointment, as i'd felt they were on a mostly great winning streak since civil war. this is flat, a bit plodding & contains predictable & far too on the nose music choices. not offensivly awful, but terribly bland & block-buster generic to me.

the cat is the star of the show.

I would not have predicted that you liked Venom more than Captain Marvel.

Triple Frontier

actually not bad at all. Not always too predictable. At one moment I thought i was watching Apolcalypse Now. And the Metallica-driven soundtrack doesn't harm either, of course! Orion in full!!!

Holmes & Watson

Will Ferrell, I love him, even when half of his jokes are too stupid. Some movies are really bad and some really good. According the ratings this should have been one of his worse. And even during watching I was ready to put this to the ground in my review. It offers the same piece of nonsense that killed The Great Gatsby-remake, soudtrack-wise. Some jokes are seen from lightyears away.
And still.... I loved the movie! Didn't want it to end. It has something inexplicable.

sexton said:

damosuzuki said:

captain marvel 2.5/5

lower tier marvel, i'd say, one of their worst perhaps. quite a disappointment, as i'd felt they were on a mostly great winning streak since civil war. this is flat, a bit plodding & contains predictable & far too on the nose music choices. not offensivly awful, but terribly bland & block-buster generic to me.

the cat is the star of the show.

I would not have predicted that you liked Venom more than Captain Marvel.

while i will happily admit that venom is a bad film, if given the choice between watching venom & cm at this moment i would choose venom. i would watch venom 15 times in full before watching 15 minutes of cm. at least venom, as silly & even incompetent as it is at times, has some personality, has a (don't laugh at me) charismatic tom hardy performance where he's attempting to achieve some kind of slapstick nirvana.

having had a few days to let it rattle around in my head, i now think that captain marvel might be the most blithely robotic movie i've ever seen in a theatre. there is simply nothing in it to latch onto. it is a cinematic block of wood. you remember how in repo man everyone drank generic beer & ate generic food? if otto took leila to a movie in repo man, it would have been captain marvel, except the poster would have been simply a giant 'generic.' it is two hours of cgi gloss & a gaping void where a personality ought to have been inserted & nothingness.

perfect blue (1997) 4/5 entertainingly weird animated pyschological horror. had some lynchian russian doll elements that i enjoyed quite a bit. perhaps felt a touch too predictable in its ending, but it's strange & nicely animated & enjoyably trashy in places.

damosuzuki said:

Have you ever been snowed in? I have; heck - I am right now. I GOT BOMB CYCLONED.

Want to hear a long story? Sure you do!

As you Faithful Readers should know by now, my favorite mother-in-law has a house in the mountains of Northern New Mexico. Which is where we let some friends use over Christmas. Mistake.

I won't bore you with everything they did that they weren't supposed to do - after all, I promised a long story, not a complete book. But you'll get it when you read this:

They slept in my favorite mother-in-law's bedroom.

I'll give you Faithful Readers a second to pick your jaw up off the floor.

Needless to say, FMIL went ballistic. "No one is ever coming up here again except us! Never ever ever EVER!"

I fed her a few Brandy and White Creme DeMenths (her favorite cool-down drink) and then attempted to gently remind her that she'd said my brother and his daughters could come up over Spring Break. No dice, so more Brandy and White Creme DeMenths. Finally, she relented and said they could come up - if I came with them.

Which created a problem. A BIG problem.

You see, the "Rodeo" in my name refers to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the biggest charity in town and just an unbelievable event. It runs 20 days during March, and I've been involved in it since 1987. My particular committee has an auction and I've worked that auction for 32 straight years. Thirty-two, in case you need to see it in letters.

Well, I can do a lot of things but I can't be in two places at the same time. And my brother's trip coincides with my auction. So naturally I told my brother, "Sorry dude, but you have to crush your kids' ski dreams this year. Tough luck".

No, I didn't - I went skiiing!

I am a Good Brother, although I did tell my brother that he had to pay for my airline tickets. So maybe I'm just a Kind Of Good Brother.

We've had a blast. He has two of his three daughters here (the oldest is on her Senior Trip, which is at the beach) and they're great. Even if they have eaten all my candy. But still, they're great.

We had to drive through a blizzard at night to get here. I honestly thought we might not make it, but we did. However, yesterday was our planned departure date and we had an even BIGGER blizzard. In fact, they're calling it a......

BOMB CYCLONE.

We definitely got bombed. I tried to make it out of town but no possible way. Aboslute zero visibility; 80 mph wind; it was a suicide trip. So we came back to the house (after buying BOMB CYCLONE food supplies at the grocery store), whereupon we found out the next flight we could get on was not today, but tomorrow.

The mountain was closed yesterday due to the BOMB CYCLONE winds, but weather today is great and I'm going to get a bonus day of skiing. However, that's neither here nor there because it's time for my movie review!

Yes, I watched a movie last night and yes, I'm eventually going to tell you what it was and what I though about it. But since I haven't written a good review in a month or two, I had some story-telling to get out of my system. Consider yourself lucky - I could go on much longer about all the junk that's happened the last week or so.

We still have our 2005-vintage Dish TV system which meant our options were limited (much like DirecTV, Dish TV SUCKS. I bet Netflix owns both companies). So limited that we had to watch a movie on a regular network, and we let the 13-year-old pick the movie.

She picked "Miss Peregrine's School For Weird Kids". That's the title, right? Something like that.

Anyway, as movies made for 13-year-olds go, it's not bad. I could do without Miss Peregrine smoking a pipe. Smoking is evil, and should never be glamorized in a kids' movie (or any other movie, which is a law I will implement when I become Emperor).

The biggest flaw is that all the Weird Kids had to do in order to totally eliminate all the monsters was to close their eyes and have The Twins (not The Twinz, unfortunately), take off their masks. You see, everyone who looks at the The Twins immediately turns to stone. Boom, problem solved. But this being a movie that had to last 2 hours (or 3 1/2 with commercials), they waited until the very last monster to have The Twins unmask themselves. BTW, I looked at The Twins and did not turn to stone. I have also danced with The Twinz, and kind of turned to jelly. But that's another story.

Since it's Pi Day I will rate The Weird Kids Movie as 3.14 Floating Girls out of 6.28 Floating Girls. Get rid of the smoking in the next movie.

RodeoSchro said:

Never Look Away (2019)

A very long but sweeping, well done film based on the life of Gerhard Richter, set in postwar Germany.

.5

Heaven's Gate (1980) Directed by Michael Cimino (who Oscars for The Dear Hunter (1978)). I found this to be one of the most boring Westerns that I have ever seen (clocking at almost 4 hours, and I still have no idea of what it was all about ). I give this snozefest (an possibly a great cure for Insomnia) a out of 5

I watched two movies featuring ladies and their cats.



Gloria Bell (2018) - A free-spirited woman in her 50s seeks out love at L.A. dance clubs.

Julianne Moore is great in this, but I don't remember the original Chilean film which I liked more, being such a dismal portayal of the titular character. 3.5/5




Captain Marvel (2019) - Carol Danvers becomes one of the universe's most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races.

I found it to be an average Marvel Cinematic Universe film albeit with timely messages about female empowerment and the refugee crisis. 3.5/5

Finding Steve Mc Queen

Charming little movie this. No brainbreaker or fast action, just amusing and charming and to the point. One of the better movies this month.

Birds of Passage (Pájaros de verano) (2018)

A stunning juxtaposition of the escalating drug wars and indigenous cultural upheaval over 2 decades in Colombia. Beautiful and brutal all at once.

.75

'blood in blood out' - stone cold classic. saw it in '94 or so, once again on youtube years ago and bought the dvd for this viewing. recognized in this viewing a clear influence on michael mann's 'heat' and 'miami vice'. in fact, except for the death of one character, 'heat' and 'miami vice' could be considered direct sequels to 'blood in blood out' for 2 characters. i wonder if, in turn, 'jericho mile' has any dna present in 'blood in blood out'? ima have to track down 'jericho mile' now...

funny, cuz i'm also currently reading don carpenter's 'hard rain falling', in which san quentin prison plays a major role.

so, i rate 'blood in blood out' 5/5. i will watch it several more times, for sure. i might even do a 'jericho mile', 'blood in blood out', 'heat', 'miami vice' marathon sometime.

Marie Antoinette 2/5 It was amusing to watch since it's visually pleasing to look at. But the modern music got to be annoying and seeing a flash of ratty old sneakers, purposely placed, just made the reason for this movie even more annoying.

East of Eden (1981) I really enjoyed watching this mini-series....because of the tour de force performance of Jane Seymour as the malevolent Cathy/Kate, who got the opportunity to play the whole role from a young sociopath (Adam's bride, and Cal and Aron's mum) to a ruthless bordello madame. It was like watching a living, breathing embodiment of evil and it won Jane a well deserved Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Mini-Series in 1982 Even though the 1955 classic film starring James Dean is forever etched in my brain and is also a superior film, it only covers the second part of the Steinbeck novel. This version is about as close to the complete story as you are likely to see. I give it a 4 out of 5

24 hour party people 4/5 one of my favourite films of the past 20 years or so, though it's just a bit too shambolic for me to give it a perfect rating. nobody plays self-important silly man better than steve coogan imo.

embryo (1976) 2.5/5

fairly dull 70s low concept sci-f with rock hudsoni. if you are a typical hetero male, you'll probably enjoy ogling barbara carrera, but otherwise i found myself wishing they had done more with what they'd had to work with. more violence, or more sleaze, or, if they really wanted to try, more ideas. more something.

if it didn't feature a smattering of nudity & a bit of gore & floating fetuses, you would be forgiven for thinking it was a mid-tier tv movie.

OK, I've heard enough. All the "Graffiti Bridge" slams and insults and general mocking. I'VE HEARD ENOUGH. You know who you are. And you know you posted the link to the movie on Facebook as a dare to get me to watch it. Well................

.............uhhhhhh............................

..................it seems that.................

..........................You're kind of right.

"Graffiti Bridge" is not a good movie. It's a bad movie. I admit it. BUT IT'S STILL NO "I, TONYA"!

There are many problems in this movie and doubtless you've heard about all of them except one. Now, solving this problem alone would not have improved the movie very much. But Prince made a choice that as soon as I realized what it was, boggled my mind.

Why didn't he ever play his guitar?

He had a Cloud and a Hohner strapped on at various times; in fact, I think it was in the same song. But he didn't play them. For a guy who got famous playing the solo in "Purple Rain", it was beyond odd to see him not play a lick on his guitar.

But even if he had, it wouldn't have helped the movie. "Grafitti Bridge" is a weak album. You know it; I know it; the American people know it. There aren't any songs from that album that make anyone's Top 50 Prince Songs Of All Time list. Except maybe "Thieves in the Temple".

Weak songs won't necessarily hurt a good plot. Unfortunately, we don't have a good plot here. Aura is supposed to be an angel, sent to save Prince and thereby the rest of Minneapolis. But Prince has already been saved, as his Glam Slam club is faltering because all his songs are about God, and no one drinks any booze at Glam Slam. They just groove and LoveOneAnother. Meh.

At the end of "Purple Rain" Morris E. Day is seen reflecting on the bad and hurtful stuff he'd said to Prince, and then jamming his watusi off at the very end. He'd been redeemed. So why was he the scum of the earth in "Graffiti Bridge"? We aren't told. Even though this IS the sequel to "Purple Rain", we are not given any reason why Day and Prince don't get along, nor why Day has reverted back to his creepy persona. In "Purple Rain" Morris was likable but in "Graffiti Bridge", he isn't.

This is a poorly-written, poorly-acted, and poorly-scored movie. But it isn't trash. Some of the visuals are good. I liked the set pieces. Prince rode his motorcycle a lot. He had that cool long hair, but his clothes were the worst clothes Prince ever wore. Except for the black leather jacket.

Make fun of "Graffiti Bridge" if you want. It deserves it. But still - IT HAS A LONG WAY TO GO BEFORE IT'S EVER ANYWHERE NEAR AS BAD AS "I, TONYA".

"Graffiti Bridge" gets 1.38 Fake Hohners Rammed Through A Drum Kit out of a possible 5 Fake Hohners Rammed Through A Drum Kit. You should probably watch "Graffiti Bridge" about once every 15 years, just because.

Did Prince really not play his guitar at all in Graffiti Bridge? I may have to suffer through it again this weekend because I find that hard to believe.

sexton said:

Did Prince really not play his guitar at all in Graffiti Bridge? I may have to suffer through it again this weekend because I find that hard to believe.

Pretty sure he didn't. He had it strapped on a couple times but I don't remember any playing. He definitely didn't play any solos. He really just used his guitar as a prop.

RodeoSchro said:

There aren't any songs from that album that make anyone's Top 50 Prince Songs Of All Time list. Except maybe "Thieves in the Temple".

hm, come again, say what??

I doubt that 'thieves' is in anyones top 50, BUT:

We Can Funk

Joy IR

Question of U

you will find in many top 50s!!

Now I have a homework assignment. Thanks Rodeo, for pointing out something nobody (not that I've seen) ever noticed.