movies

[JoeMcKim]

They have Marisa Tomei playing Aunt Mae who's much more of a MILFtastic looking Aunt Mae. Which makes more sense, not sure how the sister of Peter's mom would be of grandmother age.

[go birds]

The Belko Experiment was pretty entertaining.

[Jocephus]

i ended up watching that Monster movie (charlize playing aileen wuornos) over the weekend. had always heard about it but then i heard patty jenkins wrote and directed it and was like "huh" since she just did wonder woman. pretty damn good movie. don't know what else to say, really. i got it from netflix but its actually on YT at the moment. decent copy from what i watched.

nsfw - rated R

[SHOW]

i was a criminal justice minor and have always been fascinated with serial killer motives and backgrounds, etc and while i'd always heard of aileen i never really knew exactly what she did and/or was like. a british director did 2 documentaries on her, which are both on YT as well. he did one in the 90s when her trial was going on (and the terrible attorney she had, and bad caretakers). the other one is in the early 2000s as she is nearing the end of her life.

here's the first one

the 2nd

i've only watched the 2nd one (was having audio problems with the 1st) but i do recommend it if you have interest. while she was guilty she got used as a pawn by "friends", politicians, the law, religion, media. you see footage of jeb talking about her and charlie crist, etc. there's just this additional seedy side to the whole situation not just her brutality, etc.

[heyzeus]

Just saw The Big Sick, the rom-com by Kumail Nanjiani (Dinesh on Silicon Valley!). It's good! And I absolutely loathe rom-coms! It's actually funny, not cutesy-poo, and avoids at least half of the boring cliches of the genre, which is a good ratio. It's legit-funny, not "well, that's what passes for a joke in this sort of thing, better chuckle" funny. If you GRBers need a date movie that won't make you vom, this is a good choice.

[Freed Roger]

I took my teen to Will Ferrell/ Amy Poehler's "The House" with low expectations and they were not met.

[ghostrunner]

The Apes movies are now by far the best action blockbuster series, even though this new one has some issues and the first one was only half good.

Here's a theory - regular blockbuster action movies hardly take any time now to let characters breathe, grow, and talk (think Jaws). That can be ok when it's purely an action movie like John Wick or Fury Road, because they set a lean tone pretty early. But I'm not sure I have really cared about the Avengers. I actually saw Baby Driver too the other day, and it's sorta fun, but the characters don't seem to have much of anything genuine about them. They're more cool than real. Baby's girlfriend is awfully damn close to the manic pixie dream girl cliche.

But with Apes, I think they feel compelled to make these CGI characters real and relatable, so they actually let the camera hold still and the characters talk for more than a few minutes. The apes themselves could do with a bit more humor, but it's still nice to get a sense of their thoughts and what they think of each other. Even when the story kind of gets away, it's just enjoyable to learn about the characters.

[Jocephus]

zombie king george romero has passed. i'll never forget seeing his dawn of the dead and being both horrified and disgusted and also entertained

edit: looks like martin landau also passed

[BottenFieldofDreams]

The Apes movies are now by far the best action blockbuster series, even though this new one has some issues and the first one was only half good.

Here's a theory - regular blockbuster action movies hardly take any time now to let characters breathe, grow, and talk (think Jaws). That can be ok when it's purely an action movie like John Wick or Fury Road, because they set a lean tone pretty early. But I'm not sure I have really cared about the Avengers. I actually saw Baby Driver too the other day, and it's sorta fun, but the characters don't seem to have much of anything genuine about them. They're more cool than real. Baby's girlfriend is awfully damn close to the manic pixie dream girl cliche.

But with Apes, I think they feel compelled to make these CGI characters real and relatable, so they actually let the camera hold still and the characters talk for more than a few minutes. The apes themselves could do with a bit more humor, but it's still nice to get a sense of their thoughts and what they think of each other. Even when the story kind of gets away, it's just enjoyable to learn about the characters.

I'm not sure I follow, or perhaps I disagree. If I have to sit through another origin story that hits all the Marvel beats including the 'discovering his powers' montage (and they hardly ever play John Cafferty's 'Hears on Fire,' which compounds the problem), I might break into a seizure. I loved Fury Road, because I didn't have to watch Furiosa become Furiosa, she was just super interesting and the story grabbed me by the expletives and told me to hold on. Not knowing is more novel and interesting to me right now.

But it definitely takes the right kind of story and storytelling, and it all really depends. I think this generation of Apes movies is really great. Are they supposed to be canonical prequels? Whether they are or aren't, I really appreciated the backstory there.

How about a movie about how Liam Neeson got un-angry? I'd like to see that backstory.

[ghostrunner]

The Apes movies are now by far the best action blockbuster series, even though this new one has some issues and the first one was only half good.

Here's a theory - regular blockbuster action movies hardly take any time now to let characters breathe, grow, and talk (think Jaws). That can be ok when it's purely an action movie like John Wick or Fury Road, because they set a lean tone pretty early. But I'm not sure I have really cared about the Avengers. I actually saw Baby Driver too the other day, and it's sorta fun, but the characters don't seem to have much of anything genuine about them. They're more cool than real. Baby's girlfriend is awfully damn close to the manic pixie dream girl cliche.

But with Apes, I think they feel compelled to make these CGI characters real and relatable, so they actually let the camera hold still and the characters talk for more than a few minutes. The apes themselves could do with a bit more humor, but it's still nice to get a sense of their thoughts and what they think of each other. Even when the story kind of gets away, it's just enjoyable to learn about the characters.

I'm not sure I follow, or perhaps I disagree. If I have to sit through another origin story that hits all the Marvel beats including the 'discovering his powers' montage (and they hardly ever play John Cafferty's 'Hears on Fire,' which compounds the problem), I might break into a seizure. I loved Fury Road, because I didn't have to watch Furiosa become Furiosa, she was just super interesting and the story grabbed me by the expletives and told me to hold on. Not knowing is more novel and interesting to me right now.

But it definitely takes the right kind of story and storytelling, and it all really depends. I think this generation of Apes movies is really great. Are they supposed to be canonical prequels? Whether they are or aren't, I really appreciated the backstory there.

How about a movie about how Liam Neeson got un-angry? I'd like to see that backstory.

But learning about characters is not the same as an origin story. You learn a lot in Jaws without knowing where those guys all come from and how they got there. You can learn through action too, which is some of what happens in Fury Road/John Wick, but it's also good to have real dialogue between characters.

[Michael]

Guys, the reviews for Dunkirk are amazing. I need to see this movie.