Movie reviews

[Shamanzarek]

Netflix recently added The Vanishing from 2018. The movie is based on the disappearance of three lighthouse keepers on the Flannan Isles off the west coast of Scotland in 1900. The incident has become part of Scottish folklore with poems, songs, chamber opera, and novels inspired by it. In 1968 Genesis recorded a song called "The Mystery of Flannan Isle Lighthouse". The movie has some historical inaccuracies and presents an unlikely fictional explanation of what caused the disappearance of the three men. Not a lot of action but is well-acted and gives a glimpse into a time when certain occupations required men to be isolated from their families for extended periods with no means of communication. One of the historical flaws in the movie is that there was no radio voice transmission in 1900.

[bill5]

ugh, I hate historical inaccuracies (minor ones I can sometimes forgive). Will have to check this though, thx 

[bill5]

3 minutes ago, o0Ampy0o said:

There was The Gay Nineties referring to the 1890’s. Had nothing to do with homosexuality then. 
 

I don’t know how the word changed to mean homosexual. 

This is quite common in the English language (probably other languages as well), especially regarding slang. "Crack salesmen" used to mean a guy who was just a good salesman; now it's a drug dealer.  etc

 

 

[Floyd Tatum]

I've enjoyed the John Wick movies so far.   I'm looking forward to John Wick 4 in 2023.    I like that macho, toxic masculinity crap.  😀 

Well, some of it, anyway.

[bill5]

I haven't seen any John Wick stuff that I recall. Probably because Reeves is such an incredibly bad actor 

[o0Ampy0o]

Same here, Reeves is a cardboard actor and the beard and hairline do not help matters.

 

I think it was Netflix that used to have a robust user review database. I have been an on and off member for years. Then at one point they cut away many aspects limiting it until it became what it is currently, merely a thumb up or down and a double thumb up for love it. I’d like to comment on many of their productions hoping they would pay attention and look for ways to improve things.
 

There has been a trend where Netflix threw lots of money into projects. A big budget does not automatically equate to a quality piece of work. Typical of their productions, things look better than the content, there is a lack of substance but an abundance of everything else so you end up with a beautifully empty viewing experience.
 

I was watching a little of a current movie something about “Crawdads” and was put off by all of the over the top folksy talk. The folksy talk was like a character too aware of itself and all of the actors were too aware of their folksy talking and mannerisms. 
 

Also, the girl “11” from Stranger Things has been popular. I liked her debut when she was understated and mysterious but as she integrated with regular kids and opened up her acting went over the top. She landed her own movie franchise as a relative to Sherlock Holmes. Her acting in it is way over the top. Someone needs to coach her to dial it back. She could be better as an actress.

[Floyd Tatum]

14 minutes ago, bill5 said:

I haven't seen any John Wick stuff that I recall. Probably because Reeves is such an incredibly bad actor 

Yeah, Keanu does do cardboard.   But I find his style works for certain roles, like the first Matrix, and John Wick.   But, to each his or her own.

 

[o0Ampy0o]

True, he was fine in the first Matrix.

[octa]

Enjoyed ‘X” and its origin story “Pearl” recently, Mia Goth👀

 

and “Wyrm” is a creative high school comedy/drama set in an awkward alternate reality🥲

[bill5]

7 hours ago, Floyd Tatum said:

Yeah, Keanu does do cardboard.   But I find his style works for certain roles, like the first Matrix, and John Wick.   But, to each his or her own.

 

I thought he was good in Parenthood too, but then I wondered if he was just being himself lol

[Steve Nathan]

Thx DB

[Outkaster]

On 11/30/2022 at 2:38 AM, Floyd Tatum said:

Yeah, Keanu does do cardboard.   But I find his style works for certain roles, like the first Matrix, and John Wick.   But, to each his or her own.

 

At least he does his own stunts most of the time.  He is a great marksman.   He practices martial arts with some top guys like the Machado brothers for BBJ and practices Judo. In my world that is impressive. 

[Docbop]

I have the basic Prime that comes with movie and TV shows and watch that most the time since "over the air" TV now is totally useless.   What is interesting is to watch an old movie or TV show you loved a decade or so ago and see it now and you sit there and it's "I liked that".  Happened listening to old Rock too, I liked that????

 

I'm just finishing watching the nine seasons of the original Perry Mason show from 1957 to 1966.  It has really been interesting seeing what was a really big show in its day with 2022 eyes.   Early years the acting was so bad over acting and same reaction to emotions.   The fun part is seeing old Los Angeles and the old cars.   Also the old values and attitudes from then would never get away with today.   Then the music from the 50's early 60's from the Jazzy TV music to getting into the mid-60's and Wrecking Crew rock.   Same with fashions from old 50's plain dresses and men always in suits to mid-60's and Mod clothes and hair.   Then the old 50's attitude everything good or bad was an excuse to drink.    So really enjoy watching old Perry Mason, but for the humor of seeing the old lifestyle.   

[o0Ampy0o]

20 minutes ago, Docbop said:

I have the basic Prime that comes with movie and TV shows and watch that most the time since "over the air" TV now is totally useless.   What is interesting is to watch an old movie or TV show you loved a decade or so ago and see it now and you sit there and it's "I liked that".  Happened listening to old Rock too, I liked that????

 

I'm just finishing watching the nine seasons of the original Perry Mason show from 1957 to 1966.  It has really been interesting seeing what was a really big show in its day with 2022 eyes.   Early years the acting was so bad over acting and same reaction to emotions.   The fun part is seeing old Los Angeles and the old cars.   Also the old values and attitudes from then would never get away with today.   Then the music from the 50's early 60's from the Jazzy TV music to getting into the mid-60's and Wrecking Crew rock.   Same with fashions from old 50's plain dresses and men always in suits to mid-60's and Mod clothes and hair.   Then the old 50's attitude everything good or bad was an excuse to drink.    So really enjoy watching old Perry Mason, but for the humor of seeing the old lifestyle.   

I cannot watch old TV shows. I tried Beverly Hillbillys this past year and it was so bad so predictable and lame because it was once good and it  has been copied too much (the skits snd jokes). I loved Seinfeld but cannot watch reruns of that but the first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm I could probably enjoy again. Mad Men had a lot of nostalgia but it seemed like the producers thought they were more clever than they were credited for. 

[bill5]

I think watching older movies you have to take into account when they were made, which sometimes I can do, sometimes I can't. Actually the differences are funny sometimes, like how they used to have people in a fake car with an extremely obvious fake highway reel in the background, or a western where they're obviously sitting in a small area with fakey trees and rocks and there's just some basically big painting behind them pretending to be the mountains in the distance. The acting can be bad, but there's IMO plenty of bad acting still going on, it's just now it's bad because it's so melodramatic and everyone with this pissed off look on their face all the time. 

[David Emm]

I loosely hate to admit it, but I watched Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special and got a good laugh from it. It helped that I was clogged up with a cold and reinforced with a dose of Nyquil. Its hard to imagine enjoying it half as much without having been an ongoing follower, because its dripping with fan service and Easter eggs that normal people won't get. Note that there is also a rock band of aliens playing Earth instruments who do two different songs rather well. A few decades ago, this would have been a fierce midnight movie favorite, right before a showing of "Rocky Horror." Its one of the more surreal things I've seen in a while.

[Outkaster]

17 hours ago, Docbop said:

I have the basic Prime that comes with movie and TV shows and watch that most the time since "over the air" TV now is totally useless.   What is interesting is to watch an old movie or TV show you loved a decade or so ago and see it now and you sit there and it's "I liked that".  Happened listening to old Rock too, I liked that????

 

I'm just finishing watching the nine seasons of the original Perry Mason show from 1957 to 1966.  It has really been interesting seeing what was a really big show in its day with 2022 eyes.   Early years the acting was so bad over acting and same reaction to emotions.   The fun part is seeing old Los Angeles and the old cars.   Also the old values and attitudes from then would never get away with today.   Then the music from the 50's early 60's from the Jazzy TV music to getting into the mid-60's and Wrecking Crew rock.   Same with fashions from old 50's plain dresses and men always in suits to mid-60's and Mod clothes and hair.   Then the old 50's attitude everything good or bad was an excuse to drink.    So really enjoy watching old Perry Mason, but for the humor of seeing the old lifestyle.   

 

When Andy Griffith was on it took place in the 60's but when he was interviewed later on he said it felt like the 30's.  I like watching old episodes of Dick Van Dyke. The dress, accents and mannerism were cool.  I like how it was filmed (even though it was a soundstage probably). Those old shows worked so well because of the writing.  

[Montunoman 2]

I’m am not a big fan of Steven Spielberg films but I liked his most recent film, “ The Fabelmans”  

 

 

 

[bill5]

Jeremiah Johnson - Saw this a long long time ago and it came on TV so wth. I liked it but not as much the second time around. Still a good film, but...well I always love and respect an understated film, it's so "un-Hollywood," but this one IMO takes it to a fault at times as it drags and is flat...and the main character tbh has about as much personality as cardboard. I guess it's cool in that it's more realistic, but a better screen play could have made this so much better. On the plus side huge props to the two main supporting characters, including "Grandpa Walton" Will Geer and whoever played "Bear Claw."

[Outkaster]

On 11/30/2022 at 1:57 AM, bill5 said:

ugh, I hate historical inaccuracies (minor ones I can sometimes forgive). Will have to check this though, thx 

Gladiator (2000) was like that.  It had a lot right in it but the exhibitions and some of armor and arena procedures wasn't correct.  

[bill5]

Yeah again more minor details like that doesn't bother me (though I get how it could bother people more into those aspects). But movies like Braveheart, JFK, Lincoln, The Patriot, so many more with glaring inaccuracies that for me really detract from it. 

 

And that said I think Jeremiah Johnson was an exception. I wish they had been somewhat more accurate but portraying him with extreme accuracy would not have made a good film.

[Outkaster]

On 12/1/2022 at 3:37 PM, o0Ampy0o said:

I cannot watch old TV shows. I tried Beverly Hillbillys this past year and it was so bad so predictable and lame because it was once good and it  has been copied too much (the skits snd jokes). I loved Seinfeld but cannot watch reruns of that but the first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm I could probably enjoy again. Mad Men had a lot of nostalgia but it seemed like the producers thought they were more clever than they were credited for. 

 I know what you mean.  So many jumped the shark, I think though you have to take it for the context of when it was made.  I tell my students people that it's hard to compare things with a 2022 mindset because the world was so different back then.  In the 50s and 60s TV was still kind of new and so different. 

[bill5]

1 hour ago, Outkaster said:

 I tell my students people that it's hard to compare things with a 2022 mindset because the world was so different back then. 

It's hard and IMO short-sighted, unfair, and just plain doesn't make sense to do - and true of almost anything, not just TV/movies. That said, with TV and movies, I find sometimes I can turn that off, but sometimes I can't, try though I might. And the devil's in the details. For example, when it comes to special effects of any kind, obviously the farther back you go, esp before computers and CGI came along, were much more primitive and often obviously fake, sometimes to the point of funny. But I can usually let that go.  

[Outkaster]

People say that about the 33 King Kong ( i am a huge fan)  But in the context of history and special affects at that time it was amazing what was able to be done with stop motion.  It was essentially the first blockbuster.  It was shown in 3 theaters continuously one weekend. 

[bill5]

You mean the original? Yeah, I remember a documentary about early films and they talked about how ground-breaking it was for its time. 

[David Emm]

During the making of the original "King Kong," animator Willis O'Brien used real flowers behind a painstakingly-rendered dinosaur scene. When they looked at the rushes a week later, the armatured dino was moving properly in real-time... but the flowers behind him were blooming at high speed. D'OH! 

 

Thereafter, plastic flowers were employed.

[CowboyNQ]

Recently watched “The Northman”.  Interesting take on a revenge tale.

 

Never before have I found such a predictable movie so enjoyable.  Acting was first class.

[o0Ampy0o]

Regarding the importance of viewing things considering the context of their times, I prefer the original Terminator. Even though so much in it is crude, (not only the special effects but the cinematography, direction and budget) it managed to be thrilling. Arnold Schwarzenegger was good as a cyborg. Later all the actors playing new models proved to be better at acting like a cyborg, especially Robert Patrick. He moved like you would expect an advanced model to move. That melting morph effect also fit perfectly. But bringing back an obviously aged Terminator model 1 who has been reprogrammed to be a good Terminator (???) and depicting a young John Conner as a yammering brat ruined it. The third film in the sequel repeated too much of the same story as the second including the climactic diesel big rig final scenes. Where was the outrage? :-)

 

In a way Lucille Ball invented and defined television situation comedy and everything that has followed is doing I love Lucy. I don't believe she jumped the shark during that show's run. It wasn't until later in one of the sitcoms she was in afterwards that she fell back on very tired routines going through the physical motions with the expectant pause for laughter. For the longest time television viewers were used to having some form of Lucille Ball comedy show to watch. For the longest time they had both her old shows and a current show. That same rhythm with worn out humor was practiced later in the careers of many comics like Bob Hope, Jack Benny and George Burns. Carol Burnett incorporated a variation of it in her show's skits ....it has been adopted by naturally unfunny morning show hosts and news anchorpeople attempting to demonstrate they have some personality. We all have probably observed at least a couple of attempts at it by friends, coworkers or people you cross paths with while going about your daily life. Soon all of us who lived through these pioneering times will be gone and the generations to follow will not have a clue.

 

Seinfeld raised the bar on the quality of television humor. Everyone tried harder at writing and acting out humor. Some succeeded to their credit. I think it is interesting that Seinfeld made fun of what people were doing. I recall a scene where they were all talking about the flavor of a cantaloupe. I had engaged in a similar discussion more than a few times. They made it funny. Friends, on the other hand, invented characters and a style of humor that caught on. Seinfeld found humor in the things regular people said and did. But regular people on the street have adopted words and expressed them in a style that came from Friends. The commonly heard "I am sooooo over that" (the soooo more than anything it is used with) or "going commando" are from Friends. Apparently most of that came from the Chandler character (Mathew Perry). But I cannot watch any of these mentioned shows. I have seen it all too many times. I watched every episode of Seinfeld, it suffered and became more like other sitcoms when Larry David left even though it jumped the shark when Kramer started hamming it up and entering scenes to applause, the finale was a disappointment.  I skipped the entire last season of Friends because it was one dragged out final episode well after they had jumped the shark.

[jarrell]

For sure it helps to view things in the context of their times, movies or music or whatever. Listening to Mozart with Stravinsky ears, or King Kong '33 with '05 eyes, or lamenting Satchmo not using the expressive and technical range Miles solos use is missing the point. I once knew someone who couldn't watch any black and white movies, because the lack of color took them out of the movie experience and made it seem fake and unreal (of course movies were less realistic in acting styles, dialog, plot, cinematography etc. then also, but they were decrying the absence of color). I can't imagine what the '33 audiences thought when they saw Kong battling a dinosaur - they had never seen anything like that.

 

As far as laugh track go, the Simpsons (1989) was one of the early no laugh track sitcoms, and allowed the writers to deliver several lines in a row that couldn't be done if there was a laugh track - they would have to pause after each funny line to allow time for the laughter. The Larry Sanders Show (1992) was another one, that in addition to the realism of no laugh track (i.e. no artificial pauses in dialog), also used film for off camera and contrasted that with videotape for on camera (sometimes in the same scene).

[o0Ampy0o]

The Larry Sanders Show was amazing. There was a lot going on from different perspectives. The caricatures of the cast and guests were hilarious and accurate.  It was obvious that The Tonight Show was being parodied. I remember one of the first times Garry Shandling was on The Tonight Show. Johnny would not invite comedians to sit and talk after their routines until they had been on a few times. Garry misinterpreted a gesture and thought he was being invited to sit and talk. He walked over to Johnny at his desk and shook his hand. They immediately went to a commercial. When the break ended Garry was sitting in the guest chair beet red apologizing. I think they may have chatted briefly and plugged Shandling’s coming gigs. But he had material for his future Larry Sanders Show.