Posted by cmcafeeky on 8/7/2020 8:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dBKC on 8/7/2020 9:55:00 AM (view original):
I’ve been watching SO MANY MOVIES thanks to Covid ruining the outside world. Let’s hear the two page version if you don’t mind.

some of the best movies I’ve seen recently:

Knives Out
The Shape of Water
Parasite
Room (not “The Room”, but “Room)
Blackkklansman
Midsommar (but wow)
Uncut Gems

Film history has long been one of my main hobbies -
I have a FANTASTIC DVD collection - love Roger Ebert, etc etc...

Knives Out - I thoroughly enjoyed, and was somewhat surprised. The 'who done it' - with a convoluted series of plot twists is usually one of my least favorite types of films, as I usually don't even bother trying to follow all of the twists, as usually they force an ending just have a twist (as almost always it is illogical) - That wasn't the case with this film - it was enjoyable to follow as the thing unfolded. The ensemble did a GREAT job - I always love Michael Shannon.

The Shape of Water - Very much enjoyed the film. I have a hard time with it winning the Oscar, although I'm not sure what was the more deserving film without a list in front of me. I really cant argue with the Director wining his Oscar, as the film was well crafted - I especially enjoyed the saturated colors / film stock/ art direction. Again, I love Michael Shannon and he was a fantastic villain.

Parasite - Very disappointed in myself that I didn't see before Academy Awards (still haven't) - I much appreciate foreign cinema, and am anxious to finally check this box. Interested to see how directer changed tone of film as it progressed.

Room - depressing - well done, but hard to sit through. accolades deserved for actress. A good companion piece for this film would be 1993 film The Vanishing, and the original foreign language (Dutch) The Vanishing from 1988. Jeff Bridges is super creepy in American film from '93 (now THAT is range to go from that to Big LeBowski - lol)

Blackkklansman - not interested

Midsommer - well crafted nightmare. I don't think it really reached my expectations, but still a fine film. I REALLY like the director A.Aster, and think his previous film Heredatary is even better. A great companion for Midsommer would be the British film Wicker Man from 1974. I'm pretty certain this was inspired a great deal by WIcker Man. I thought the American remake with Nicholas Cage was decent. The British Wicker man had added interest, as my ancestors originate from a similar creepy west coast Scottish Island, and I kept thinking a bunch of the locals in the film look a great deal like my cousins in Tennessee... lol

Uncut Gems - Criminally under rated - Adam Sandler hit a home run - VERY well done... I'd like to see it again. Kevin Garnett did well in support role. The guy who was Sandler and Garnett go between did fine in small support role (seemed very authentic). I heard about the film having Sandler, and knew he would do well due to an earlier quirky film: Punch Drunk Love - which I consider a great low budget odd ball classic.

I watched all but two films on that list and I thought Blackkklansmen had a pretty good case for being the second best after Parasite.

Any reason a self professed film historian would have no interest in watching one of the most well regarded films of the last couple of years?

Yeah Blackkklansman was really good

Robusk, don’t know if you saw it since the page changed but great job on that list. I’m not sure I’ve seen ANY of them. Gives me a lot to work with.

Posted by dBKC on 8/7/2020 9:10:00 PM (view original):
Yeah Blackkklansman was really good

Robusk, don’t know if you saw it since the page changed but great job on that list. I’m not sure I’ve seen ANY of them. Gives me a lot to work with.

I just did. Let me know if you want to discuss or want something more tailored. I watch a lot so I can go all day.

If you end up watching one I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Posted by cmcafeeky on 8/7/2020 8:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dBKC on 8/7/2020 9:55:00 AM (view original):
I’ve been watching SO MANY MOVIES thanks to Covid ruining the outside world. Let’s hear the two page version if you don’t mind.

some of the best movies I’ve seen recently:

Knives Out
The Shape of Water
Parasite
Room (not “The Room”, but “Room)
Blackkklansman
Midsommar (but wow)
Uncut Gems

Film history has long been one of my main hobbies -
I have a FANTASTIC DVD collection - love Roger Ebert, etc etc...

Knives Out - I thoroughly enjoyed, and was somewhat surprised. The 'who done it' - with a convoluted series of plot twists is usually one of my least favorite types of films, as I usually don't even bother trying to follow all of the twists, as usually they force an ending just have a twist (as almost always it is illogical) - That wasn't the case with this film - it was enjoyable to follow as the thing unfolded. The ensemble did a GREAT job - I always love Michael Shannon.

The Shape of Water - Very much enjoyed the film. I have a hard time with it winning the Oscar, although I'm not sure what was the more deserving film without a list in front of me. I really cant argue with the Director wining his Oscar, as the film was well crafted - I especially enjoyed the saturated colors / film stock/ art direction. Again, I love Michael Shannon and he was a fantastic villain.

Parasite - Very disappointed in myself that I didn't see before Academy Awards (still haven't) - I much appreciate foreign cinema, and am anxious to finally check this box. Interested to see how directer changed tone of film as it progressed.

Room - depressing - well done, but hard to sit through. accolades deserved for actress. A good companion piece for this film would be 1993 film The Vanishing, and the original foreign language (Dutch) The Vanishing from 1988. Jeff Bridges is super creepy in American film from '93 (now THAT is range to go from that to Big LeBowski - lol)

Blackkklansman - not interested

Midsommer - well crafted nightmare. I don't think it really reached my expectations, but still a fine film. I REALLY like the director A.Aster, and think his previous film Heredatary is even better. A great companion for Midsommer would be the British film Wicker Man from 1974. I'm pretty certain this was inspired a great deal by WIcker Man. I thought the American remake with Nicholas Cage was decent. The British Wicker man had added interest, as my ancestors originate from a similar creepy west coast Scottish Island, and I kept thinking a bunch of the locals in the film look a great deal like my cousins in Tennessee... lol

Uncut Gems - Criminally under rated - Adam Sandler hit a home run - VERY well done... I'd like to see it again. Kevin Garnett did well in support role. The guy who was Sandler and Garnett go between did fine in small support role (seemed very authentic). I heard about the film having Sandler, and knew he would do well due to an earlier quirky film: Punch Drunk Love - which I consider a great low budget odd ball classic.

Why not interested in Blackkklansman? I thought it was really good.

Posted by robusk on 8/7/2020 9:14:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dBKC on 8/7/2020 9:10:00 PM (view original):
Yeah Blackkklansman was really good

Robusk, don’t know if you saw it since the page changed but great job on that list. I’m not sure I’ve seen ANY of them. Gives me a lot to work with.

I just did. Let me know if you want to discuss or want something more tailored. I watch a lot so I can go all day.

If you end up watching one I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I just got HBO. Curb is amazing (pirated it before getting HBO and have been watching for years), but I just started watching Barry and it’s GREAT. Have you seen it?

Posted by dBKC on 8/7/2020 9:33:00 PM (view original):

Posted by robusk on 8/7/2020 9:14:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dBKC on 8/7/2020 9:10:00 PM (view original):
Yeah Blackkklansman was really good

Robusk, don’t know if you saw it since the page changed but great job on that list. I’m not sure I’ve seen ANY of them. Gives me a lot to work with.

I just did. Let me know if you want to discuss or want something more tailored. I watch a lot so I can go all day.

If you end up watching one I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I just got HBO. Curb is amazing (pirated it before getting HBO and have been watching for years), but I just started watching Barry and it’s GREAT. Have you seen it?

Oh yeah it’s really good. The last season was so stressful. I’ve been big in on Hader since The Skeleton Twins movie.

Posted by tarheel1991 on 8/7/2020 9:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cmcafeeky on 8/7/2020 8:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dBKC on 8/7/2020 9:55:00 AM (view original):
I’ve been watching SO MANY MOVIES thanks to Covid ruining the outside world. Let’s hear the two page version if you don’t mind.

some of the best movies I’ve seen recently:

Knives Out
The Shape of Water
Parasite
Room (not “The Room”, but “Room)
Blackkklansman
Midsommar (but wow)
Uncut Gems

Film history has long been one of my main hobbies -
I have a FANTASTIC DVD collection - love Roger Ebert, etc etc...

Knives Out - I thoroughly enjoyed, and was somewhat surprised. The 'who done it' - with a convoluted series of plot twists is usually one of my least favorite types of films, as I usually don't even bother trying to follow all of the twists, as usually they force an ending just have a twist (as almost always it is illogical) - That wasn't the case with this film - it was enjoyable to follow as the thing unfolded. The ensemble did a GREAT job - I always love Michael Shannon.

The Shape of Water - Very much enjoyed the film. I have a hard time with it winning the Oscar, although I'm not sure what was the more deserving film without a list in front of me. I really cant argue with the Director wining his Oscar, as the film was well crafted - I especially enjoyed the saturated colors / film stock/ art direction. Again, I love Michael Shannon and he was a fantastic villain.

Parasite - Very disappointed in myself that I didn't see before Academy Awards (still haven't) - I much appreciate foreign cinema, and am anxious to finally check this box. Interested to see how directer changed tone of film as it progressed.

Room - depressing - well done, but hard to sit through. accolades deserved for actress. A good companion piece for this film would be 1993 film The Vanishing, and the original foreign language (Dutch) The Vanishing from 1988. Jeff Bridges is super creepy in American film from '93 (now THAT is range to go from that to Big LeBowski - lol)

Blackkklansman - not interested

Midsommer - well crafted nightmare. I don't think it really reached my expectations, but still a fine film. I REALLY like the director A.Aster, and think his previous film Heredatary is even better. A great companion for Midsommer would be the British film Wicker Man from 1974. I'm pretty certain this was inspired a great deal by WIcker Man. I thought the American remake with Nicholas Cage was decent. The British Wicker man had added interest, as my ancestors originate from a similar creepy west coast Scottish Island, and I kept thinking a bunch of the locals in the film look a great deal like my cousins in Tennessee... lol

Uncut Gems - Criminally under rated - Adam Sandler hit a home run - VERY well done... I'd like to see it again. Kevin Garnett did well in support role. The guy who was Sandler and Garnett go between did fine in small support role (seemed very authentic). I heard about the film having Sandler, and knew he would do well due to an earlier quirky film: Punch Drunk Love - which I consider a great low budget odd ball classic.

Why not interested in Blackkklansman? I thought it was really good.

Must not be a fan of Topher Grace.

Guys go talk about movies somewhere else haha

You guys have some good picks. I haven't seen all of them, but they're all up my alley in one way or another.

• Artsy dramas/dramedies
  • Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Frances McDormand has this internalized rage thing down to a science. Plenty of lessons written in between the lines. Martin McDonagh. Which, of course, leads me to.....
  • In Bruges. A bit older (2008), but also by McDonagh and utterly hilarious (Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson). Two hit men have to lay low in Belgium until further notice and they cannot stand it for one second. It's somewhere between heavy satire and deadpan comedy, but it works. Which brings me to
  • The Lobster. Colin Farrell's character has to find a significant other or he turns into a lobster. It's pretty simple, really. An original concept - at last!
  • Drive. I keep going back to this one (starring Ryan Gosling). It's a very simple story with very emotional performances and not a lot of dialogue. Just the right amount of everything. A little bloody, but a very well executed action movie with very few frills, minimal CGI (if any) and great performances. Honestly, it's the way action movies should be.
  • Leaves of Grass. Anything Ed Norton, obviously, but this is maybe his second best performance behind Fight Club. Really intense and interesting, mostly unlike anything I've seen in a while.
  • Straight Outta Compton. Man, this messed me up. Three hours and I hung on every word.
  • The Irishman. C'mon, it's Scorsese. DeNiro/Pacino/Pesci killed it. Need I say more?
• Sci-fi-ish
  • Interstellar. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I was moved by it. Was it realistic by physics terms? No, not at all. Was it a good story? Yes. Nolan's earned enough credibility that I'd see anything of his (except Dunkirk, which never really appealed to me in the first place)
  • Ex Machina. Holy hell. It jumped all the way into my top five all time.
  • Ad Astra. I think I gave up on Brad Pitt's performances a while back, but he killed it as the son of a legendary astronaut who also becomes an astronaut. Think "The Martian" meets "Apocalypse Now."
  • Annihilation. Wow, I'm still messed up about this. Visually stunning. It's a "thriller" but it's more about genuine suspense. Also an A24 product.
  • Mad Max: Fury Road. Post-apocalyptic at its finest. Ridley Scott came back to show us how it's done.
  • Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Interactive? awesome
• Stand-up
  • Dave Chappelle - 'nuff said
  • Chris Rock - also 'nuff said
  • Louis CK John Mulaney
  • Jim Jefferies
  • Anthony Jeselnik
  • Tracy Morgan
  • etc
• Documentaries
  • All Things Must Pass, the story of Tower Records. A really wonderful story about the rise and demise of Tower Records (and, as a microcosm, the music industry in general).
  • The Roosevelts by Ken Burns. Probably not for everyone. If anything, it takes me back to an older aesthetic. There's something about it that grabs me every time.
  • Jaco. I love Jaco Pastorius so much. A really gripping portrait of a genius. Some people are just blessed to do something special. Jaco was one of those, and the doc makes that abundantly clear.
  • Pretty Good. A show about stuff that is pretty good in sports. I have to imagine some of you know the work of Jon Bois, but if not, this seems like the site where all you can appreciate something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTM_eN8AZeQ, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4AhABManTw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndmBCqds_gc or maybe, maybe, even this https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football.
  • generally Michael Moore. Good stuff, well explained, researched, and told. The underpinnings of the modern left.
• Funny(ish)
  • The Death of Stalin. Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev? A hilarious goofball comedy about the fall of the Soviet Union? Yep, sure.
  • (I forget)
• Number one
  • Synecdoche, New York. The best made, best told, most layered, most cerebral, most emotional, most brutal, visceral, amazing thing I have ever seen. Charlie Kaufman is a legend. With that said, if you don't like movies with layers, turn back. Not for everyone.

Shows? Too many, but I'll give you three of my absolute favorites.

• BoJack Horseman. I did not know a cartoon could be this heavy. If you like heavy offbeat comedies about animals who can talk, this is for you. If not, well, it's definitely not. It's not for everyone.
• Twin Peaks: The Return. I take it some (none?) of you have seen this, as The Owls Are Not What They Seem was not a reference anyone caught. If you haven't seen the original show from '91, do not start with The Return. If you don't want to go down the David Lynch rabbit hole, this is not for you.
• Mr. Robot. Sam Esmail is the truth. Again, super layered, brilliantly directed, breaks with filmmaking convention in every episode and centers around a highly unreliable narrator who is schizophrenic and plots to hack the biggest conglomerate in the world to erase all debt. Other than that, pretty standard fare.

My general source for film is rogerebert.com. If a film gets 3.5 stars on that site, I'll see it. If it gets 3, I'll think about it. If it gets less than 3, I won't see it. With that said, I'm pretty picky these days about what I consider to be really, really good. If you're like that, I'd highly recommend it, no matter what you're into.

Nice list bds. Outside of the stand up I think there are only t her we things in that list I haven’t seen and I liked almost all of it.

I thought with quarantine I’d finally carve out enough time for The Irishman but I suspect it will never be the case.

Posted by robusk on 8/7/2020 11:02:00 AM (view original):
A lot of what I like fits into a couple categories: ****** action movies, quirky comedies (I love a lot of movies that get stamped with this “mumblecore” tag that I am not particularly fond of), westerns, capers/heists, karate and car chases. I’ll watch anything amazing directors like the Coen Brothers and PT Anderson do. I won’t bore people with all the mainstream, obvious stuff or the old classics (I could talk about spaghetti westerns all day). I also love watching absurdly bad movies with my close friends who are also film crazy just so we can make fun of them. A list of movies from the last 5-10 years ago that I really like a lot that (that I suspect you might not have seen) I can recommend are as follows:

• Mumblecore comedies
  • Joe Swanberg makes a lot of movies I really dig.
    • Digging for Fire
    • Win It All
    • Drinking Buddies
    • Happy Christmas
  • Your Sister’s Sister
  • Cyrus
  • Safety Not Guranteed
• Indie-ish One Man Wrecking Crew
  • Jeremy Saulnier is someone I want to call out because he hasn’t made a lot but what he does make is so good, if stressful and intense.
    • Green Room
    • Blue Ruin
  • Upgrade
  • The Guest
  • Wheelman
  • Hanna
  • Extraction
  • Shot Caller
• Martial Arts
  • The Man From Nowhere
  • Raid series
  • Ip Man series
  • Kung Fu Jungle
  • Man of Tai Chi
  • Kill Zone series
  • Wolf Warrior series
  • Steven Chow movies
• Westerns
  • Meek’s Cutoff
  • The Salvation
  • Hell or High Water
  • Bone Tomahawk
  • Open Range
• Heist
  • Triple Frontier
  • Den of Thieves
  • Logan Lucky
  • Widows

In terms of TV shows, I am not exciting. I love The Wire (my favorite thing ever made and I watch it constantly), Deadwood, Justified, Watchmen (super well done), Westworld (the one form of sci-fi I love is a dystopian future so things like Blade Runner, etc.), Curb, honestly like half of what HBO does is awesome.

Most of this list is too deep for me. But some thoughts:

--I love kung fu moves; the Ip Man and Raid series are both very good (but very different). Haven't seen the rest, I don't think. Robusk, do you like any Jackie Chan kung fu movies? Police Story, Drunken Master 1/2, Rumble in the Bronx, etc? I'm a big fan of those. (One of his more recent films, The Foreigner, is also excellent, but is nowhere close to a kung fu movie.)

--Never understood why Logan Lucky didn't get more love. Soderbergh, great cast, good reviews, but for whatever recent it just didn't generate much momentum (or revenue). I loved it. Another Heist movie I liked was Baby Driver, though it was a little too cutesy sometimes.

--Speaking of Ip Man - I know you said no space movies but you should watch Rogue One, one of the more recent Star Wars movies. Not part of the main sequences of trilogies, but takes place leading up to the original Star Wars (Episode 4). Good cast featuring Ip Man's own Donnie Yen.

I mean it’s a really good movie though. Like top 10 film of its era good. It’s worth at least watching and then criticizing. I don’t like Kanye’s personality and I don’t like some of the stuff he says, but I always check out his new albums and pick out the genius moments and the bad moments and dissect it as a whole.

Truly the “I have black friends” of responses.

A lot I could say in response, but Ben is doing some truly magnificent stuff in this thread and I don’t want to trash it for him.

Probably a Pennsylvania thread we can resurrect lying around somewhere.

Honestly, I saw it and I didn't like it that much. If the message was what was right on the surface, that's fine, but I wonder if it would have been better formatted as a documentary on white supremacy. Almost like the characters/semi-fiction aspects didn't add anything except situational awkwardness. I don't know, maybe there's something I missed.