I realize this is an old movie, but goddamn I love Zoolander. I'm watching it again for the first time in a few years and it really holds up. God this movie is funny.
I drop Zoolander quotes into conversation almost daily. Less and less people are picking up on them as time goes by...
My wife has heard “Tushy squeeze, coming in!” Way too many times
I loved everything about Mandy. I want more movies that exist in this awful and weird alternate universe. There's nothing quite else like it and now that I've had taste I just want more. It feels like Mad Max, Heavy Metal, Hellraiser, the Manson family, Conan the Barbarian and a strong batch of LSD got thrown in a blender and out came this beautiful concoction.
Anyone who slams Nicolas Cage will answer to a higher power. The man is a gift from the entertainment gods.
I loved everything about Mandy. I want more movies that exist in this awful and weird alternate universe. There's nothing quite else like it and now that I've had taste I just want more. It feels like Mad Max, Heavy Metal, Hellraiser, the Manson family, Conan the Barbarian and a strong batch of LSD got thrown in a blender and out came this beautiful concoction.
Anyone who slams Nicolas Cage will answer to a higher power. The man is a gift from the entertainment gods.
I liked Mandy as well, mostly for how bats**t insane it was. Crazy, over the top Nic Cage is great when the movie calls for it, and this one was a perfect vehicle for that kind of performance. I really enjoyed it.
Blindspotting
Seems to me this movie is for Millennials and Post-Millennials who have never seen Mean Streets. And the movie suffers from quite a bit of tonal inconsistency because sometimes Miles’ explosive and violent anger is played for laughs and sometimes it’s meant to scare the audience. DeNiro's Johnny Boy acted out irrationally and out-of-control but you never felt he was doing so for the convenience of the plot. And there are lots of raves for that rap/monologue at the end of the movie but I didn’t buy it. If Miles is unable to change his behavior, we are supposed to believe this dirty cop will?
Destroyer
I think the way to approach this movie is to watch it like it’s Kill Bill or one of those Park Chan Wook revenge thrillers, i.e., this movie takes place strictly in the world of celluloid, with no semblance of the real LAPD. I think for Kusama to approach this material as a gritty police procedural gives viewers the wrong expectations. My wife could not buy much of what was going onscreen but I pretty much gave up trying to accept the story as anything near realistic as soon as I saw Kidman beat up an armed bodyguard with a soapdish. One has to accept that scene as something similar to the hammer scene in Oldboy, I think. So once I accepted the film on that level, I found it much more enjoyable. And like many Asian revenge thrillers, there is plenty of melodrama or “han” in the film, especially at the end. My wife found it all so overwrought and embarrassing but I had completely bought into it by then.
The House That Jack Built
Seems like all von Trier is interested in making are provocative films these days. The reports from Cannes of many people walking out on this film because of the disturbing/gruesome content seems to be over-exaggerated. There is much more explicit violence here than your typical von Trier film but I didn't find it nearly as violent as some films I've seen in recent years (like Green Room or Brawl in Cell Block 99 or You Were Never Really Here). Maybe it's because of the stilted dialogue (someone once described the dialogue in von Trier's English language films as sounding like "badly translated Ibsen") but I never feel like von Trier's characters are real in any way. You feel like they are just von Trier's mouthpieces as he presents his dialectical arguments. This film also feels like a companion to Nymphomaniac, mostly in the use of conversation between the protagonist and a stranger (Stellan Skarsgard in Nymphomaniac, the late Bruno Ganz in this one) as a narrative device and for von Trier to provide context to some of the disturbing images he is presenting to the viewers. Another similarity to Nymphomaniac is the return of Uma Thurman as another intensely frank character -- she stole all her scenes in Nymphonmaniac but von Trier and Thurman were unable to capture lightning in a bottle a second time, unfortunately. I can't say I loved the film but I admired it and was never bored, despite the 150+ minute running time. And the film had some incredible and beautiful imagery, including this one.
Of Fathers and Sons
A documentary that follows an al-Nusra fighter and his sons in Northern Syria during a two year span. Pretty amazing journalism as it’s clear the documentarian had gained the full trust of the family because the film shows the family in very intimate moments but it’s also one of those docs that makes one feel so hopeless. I was struck by how much these boys love their father, who is very affectionate with his sons – always tussling their hair and giving them lots of hugs and kisses. And when the father is seriously wounded, we get to see the tears shed by the boys for their father, who they see as a superhero. And yet the father believe it’s his duty to sacrifice his beloved sons for jihad.
Thoroughbreds
I’ve seen lots of comparisons with Heathers and Heavenly Creatures and those are appropriate. I would also add Elephant and Nocturama, as two more films that depict aimless slacker youths planning and doing horrific and evil things in a perfunctory manner with no signs of emotion. So there was a part of me that felt I had seen this movie before but what really sets this movie apart for me is the amazing dialogue, which must have been pretty tricky to write because one of the main characters is frank and brutally honest and can see right through human phoniness while the second character is manipulative and deceitful and narcissistic. Having the two still be able to communicate meaningfully and develop, not necessarily a friendship but a codependency, was like a highwire act, and I didn’t think it was possible but Cory Finley (the writer/director) was able to sustain it through the entire movie without betraying either character. And I thought the final line of dialogue in the movie was devastatingly brilliant.
Just watched "Fighting with my family". I wasn't sure what to expect, but...was somewhat impressed with what I got. It's an interesting look inside the wrestling world.
Just don't get it mixed up with the other one...easy mistake to make. It's, uh, that Mads Mikkelsen movie with the cold sounding title...
From Movie Bob.
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Let’s clear this up first: Polar stars Mads Mikkelsen and is named for a cold region of the world, but it is not the movie where Mikkelsen is trying to survive in the mountains after a plane crash. That movie is called Arctic. This is a different, considerably less compelling film that just happens to share the same star, title sensibility, and relative period of release. I’m glad we had this talk.
Watched about 30 minutes of the Michael Jackson documentary "Leaving Neverland", that was enough to never want to listen to another MJ tune again. Over the last few years I had convinced myself that the accusations were over stated and he was just a weird guy trying to recreate his childhood. Nope. He's basically R Kelly, but with 7-10 year old boys instead. Stomach churning stuff.
my kids dug out my old copy of Yellow Submarine over the weekend, which I hadn't watched in at least ten years. I'm not what you'd call a Beatles fan, but man I love this movie! with the animation and colours it almost felt like introducing the kids to LSD.
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"If Javex is your muse…then dive in buddy"
Watched about 30 minutes of the Michael Jackson documentary "Leaving Neverland", that was enough to never want to listen to another MJ tune again. Over the last few years I had convinced myself that the accusations were over stated and he was just a weird guy trying to recreate his childhood. Nope. He's basically R Kelly, but with 7-10 year old boys instead. Stomach churning stuff.
I remember hearing about the bedroom alarm he had set up so he knew when anyone was walking down the hall and at the door. Was then convinced he wasa piece of crap.
Gotta think back to Kat Williams bit, pretty brave and possibly very accurate.
Watched about 30 minutes of the Michael Jackson documentary "Leaving Neverland", that was enough to never want to listen to another MJ tune again. Over the last few years I had convinced myself that the accusations were over stated and he was just a weird guy trying to recreate his childhood. Nope. He's basically R Kelly, but with 7-10 year old boys instead. Stomach churning stuff.
If the allegations are true then I agree 100% with you. I haven't seen the doc ,however, are we going to ignore the outcome of his trial where the State of California found him innocent and a 10 year FBI investigation that lead to absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing? Shouldn't that hold more weight over deciding innocent or guilty than a HBO documentary?
If the allegations are true then I agree 100% with you. I haven't seen the doc ,however, are we going to ignore the outcome of his trial where the State of California found him innocent and a 10 year FBI investigation that lead to absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing? Shouldn't that hold more weight over deciding innocent or guilty than a HBO documentary?
It is odd that some of the people damning him now didn't do so while he was on trial and I don't have the time to dissect the minutiae of these trials (I'd wager Michael have virtually limitless funds had a lot to do with it), but being legally innocent and being morally innocent are different things. Californian law seems to make it difficult to charge pedophiles (this is what is keeping Feldman from naming names), especially ones that can protect themselves with money.
I mean, no one in their right mind would bring a child as a traveling companion on a world tour, fawning over them and keeping them by their side as much as possible. The idea of doing such a thing would be stupid and disgusting to anyone but a child molester.
If the allegations are true then I agree 100% with you. I haven't seen the doc ,however, are we going to ignore the outcome of his trial where the State of California found him innocent and a 10 year FBI investigation that lead to absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing? Shouldn't that hold more weight over deciding innocent or guilty than a HBO documentary?
Listen, the justice system isn't perfect. I remember O.J. Simpson being acquitted on murder charges at one point as well, but nobody in their right mind is going to look at that case now and tell you he was innocent. We don't know exactly what Jackson did, but I'm pretty positive that it was both illegal and incredibly immoral. I think we have enough information at this point to say that.
Even though the public is generally too stupid to judge most cases fairly, in some cases it becomes so obvious that public opinion trumps the court decision. Double jeopardy is part of the issue as well.
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Originally Posted by ResAlien
If we can't fall in love with replaceable bottom 6 players then the terrorists have won.
If the allegations are true then I agree 100% with you. I haven't seen the doc ,however, are we going to ignore the outcome of his trial where the State of California found him innocent and a 10 year FBI investigation that lead to absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing? Shouldn't that hold more weight over deciding innocent or guilty than a HBO documentary?
There is a reason Jackson died broke, he was paying out millions in hush money, his family was a car wreck, his sister accused his dad of molesting her, dad beat the tar out of all of them and was as evil as any father you could find, on top of this they grew up in the JW's a religion with a huge history of child abuse problems, mostly around the 'spare the rod and spoil the child' variety, Jackson's was a text book background for an offender.
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My Dinner With Herve on HBO. Peter Dinklage as Herve Villechaize, the dwarf from Fantasy Island and The Man With the Golden Gun. It’s kinda weird and Dinklage is excellent.
