What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

My wife brought home Life of the Party, the Melissa McCarthy-goes-back-to-school from Redbox. It is the most perplexingly bad film I’ve seen in years.

I don’t think it was written. It’s very nearly a home movie. McCarthy’s husband grabbed a camera, pointed it at her and said “Be funny.” Apparently she understood that to mean never stop talking. Just tell a joke and let it land. Be confident that it’s actually funny and don’t flop sweat into the next thing.

Or maybe it’s just avant garde because it also did away with conflict, one of the fundamental aspects of narrative. What does the protagonist struggle against and overcome? Her own self doubt after being a full-time mom for two decades? She’s immediately the top student in her 300-level archaeology class. The society of fellow students her daughter’s age? Everyone loves her. The mean girls? They’re weightless to the point of nonexistence. The scumbag ex-husband and his affair? No pining, no doubt who is in the wrong. How is she transformed by the experience? No idea.

It’s a shame because I think McCarthy is a decent actress and comedian. She just takes every project and paycheck because she’s afraid her time is almost up.

I watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It's on HBO right now. It contains many well-acted performances... I can't say I really enjoyed it though, because it's very depressing. No character ends up better than they started. That's kind of a drag.

hotseatgames wrote: I watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It's on HBO right now. It contains many well-acted performances... I can't say I really enjoyed it though, because it's very depressing. No character ends up better than they started. That's kind of a drag.

The filmmaker, Martin McDonagh, used to be a playwright I admire. On stage, the language of his work took over and his bleak vision came across as explicitly satirical and darkly funny. Once he made In Bruges, however, he got the bug to create movies. I find his movies leaden. He's concerned at once with prestige and with his own sense of pet "freakishness" (which, to my mind, usually comes across as ableist and a little racist).

I just rewatched that as well. Still loved it.

I wrote a review of EIGHTH GRADE which is published but not featured. Be sure to check it out. Might be the best movie this year so far. I thought it was great

hotseatgames wrote: I watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It's on HBO right now. It contains many well-acted performances... I can't say I really enjoyed it though, because it's very depressing. No character ends up better than they started. That's kind of a drag.

Hm. I don't really agree. I think both Mildred and Jason found closure as they left town to kill another guy for another murder. It gets them out of the town that makes them broken people. It gives them a perception of "justice" for a problem that Mildred has that she can't solve and which Jason has that he doesn't know how to solve. It's macabre, but it is a black comedy.

My main criticism of the film is that it's clearly written by a playwright. Each scene is a set piece and there's not really much flow from one scene to the next. You can basically see the point where the lights do down and the cast members rearrange the furniture before the story begins again. You could have isolated many of them from the plot and just used them as improv bits or loosely associated stories in an anthology piece.

just lots of people dealing with anger in all sorts of ways.

I love how in that final scene they're not even sure if they're going to do it. They just found a common distraction for the time being.

so many amazing scenes in that movie:
- mildred's interrogation scene (my favourite)
- when her family casually puts the table back up after the big fight, like they've done it 100 times before and it's no big deal
- pretty much any Sam Rockwell scene since his character is so complex and layered (the scenes with his mom and so necessary too). I think my favourite might be the one in the hospital with the orange juice. Wow.

love it.

AMERICAN ANIMALS. I'd been wanting to see this for months, and it finally came somewhere near me (to my TV, via Redbox). Holy shit, it's great. A true story about a heist of rare books from Transylvania University (yes, that's a place!) that combines actors with the real people involved. The format is fun, because they sometimes change what you see based on the different recollections, and the real people occasionally interact with the actors. But even aside from that gimmick, this is absolutely riveting in the way it's depicted, the actors are terrific, and it gets into some interesting aspects of why they felt compelled to do it, and the consequences.

Jackwraith wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: I watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It's on HBO right now. It contains many well-acted performances... I can't say I really enjoyed it though, because it's very depressing. No character ends up better than they started. That's kind of a drag.

Hm. I don't really agree. I think both Mildred and Jason found closure as they left town to kill another guy for another murder. It gets them out of the town that makes them broken people. It gives them a perception of "justice" for a problem that Mildred has that she can't solve and which Jason has that he doesn't know how to solve. It's macabre, but it is a black comedy.

My main criticism of the film is that it's clearly written by a playwright. Each scene is a set piece and there's not really much flow from one scene to the next. You can basically see the point where the lights do down and the cast members rearrange the furniture before the story begins again. You could have isolated many of them from the plot and just used them as improv bits or loosely associated stories in an anthology piece.

That's a good assessment, as far as the writing style. But I think the point of the ending is a meta reflection on the whole thing. Because the characters don't get closure, we don't get closure, and we feel the same way that the character feels about the unresolved murder of her daughter. It's kind of ballsy to say hey audience, I'm gonna leave you feeling jipped in terms of resolution, but that's the intention.

Grudunza wrote: But I think the point of the ending is a meta reflection on the whole thing. Because the characters don't get closure, we don't get closure, and we feel the same way that the character feels about the unresolved murder of her daughter. It's kind of ballsy to say hey audience, I'm gonna leave you feeling jipped in terms of resolution, but that's the intention.

Yep. Totally agree. It's left for the audience to question because... that's life. A lot of things in life don't get closure like that. In a way, that's the upside of this having been written by a playwright, because good theater tends toward that kind of ambiguity because it's often trying to get the audience to think and discuss as they exit the show (where traditionally a performance might be the only thing showing for weeks at a time in any given neighborhood and the only major entertainment available to many people.) Pat endings don't make you think.

Picked up Death of Stalin from Redbox last week. All the way legit. It’s from Armando Iannucci but a fine evolution on his work from The Thick of It and Veep. Where those focused more the venality, pettiness, incompetence and desperation of the ruling class, Death is much more about the double think necessary to survive in the Soviet Union.

Not that there aren’t plenty of little men playing big, but the best scenes (the opening orchestra recording and Molotov and Khrushchev arguing with Beria about the loyalty of being happy about Molotov’s wife’s survival) depend on the unique political circumstances of the time.

Watch it. It’s real political satire. Not the thin soup of finding a new way to describe Trump’s skin color.

DarthJoJo wrote: Picked up Death of Stalin from Redbox last week. All the way legit. It’s from Armando Iannucci but a fine evolution on his work from The Thick of It and Veep. Where those focused more the venality, pettiness, incompetence and desperation of the ruling class, Death is much more about the double think necessary to survive in the Soviet Union.

Not that there aren’t plenty of little men playing big, but the best scenes (the opening orchestra recording and Molotov and Khrushchev arguing with Beria about the loyalty of being happy about Molotov’s wife’s survival) depend on the unique political circumstances of the time.

Watch it. It’s real political satire. Not the thin soup of finding a new way to describe Trump’s skin color.

I loved that! It isn't often laugh-out-loud funny, but pretty dense with wit and humor. Picked up more of it the second time.

The Final Girls (2015) - Modern teens get trapped in an 80's slasher flick called Camp Bloodbath. It was okay. Probably better for people with nostalgia or fans of Friday 13th as a comedy. The title refers to the girl who survives to the end of these types of movies and "kills" the bad guy.

ChristopherMD wrote: The Final Girls (2015) - Modern teens get trapped in an 80's slasher flick called Camp Bloodbath. It was okay. Probably better for people with nostalgia or fans of Friday 13th as a comedy. The title refers to the girl who survives to the end of these types of movies and "kills" the bad guy.

The Final Girls was better than I expected, but I had low expectations. The meta aspect was oppressive at times, but it was nice to see some of the genre tropes mocked.

My parents watched the boys as my wife and I slunk out for Crazy Rich Asians. Yeah. It absolutely deserves to be top of the box office. On the one hand it’s very much in the line of modern romantic comedies with a dress montage and lifestyle fantasy and a crazy best friend and a gay best friend, but it’s emotionally anchored by some great performances by the lead women.

Props to Constance Wu for low-key charm without dipping into the manic Meg Ryan well, Michelle Yeoh for being stone cold without turning a full-on villain and Gemma Chan for making me want more of her story in a movie that already runs two hours.

Jurassic World - Fallen Kingdom - I went in with low expectations and they were met. Why they thought rehashing the plot from Jurassic Park: The Lost World was a good idea I'll never figure out. Not recommended.