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

It has been a long time since I read High Fidelity, by Nick Hornsby, but it really connected with me. The book came out in 1995, and my peak random dating years were 1994 - 1996, so I could totally relate to the humor and sadness of the various breakup experiences. And the music, definitely the music that the main characters were talking about. But I never got around to seeing the movie, until now.

High Fidelity could be described as an anti-RomCom. The typical RomCom follows a specific Hollywood 3-act structure: boy meets girl, complication, happily ever after. High Fidelity starts out with a break-up, and then goes back and forth between looking at the protagonist's past breakups and dealing with the aftermath of his current breakup. John Cusack plays the jerky ex-boyfriend who obsessively analyzes his past and recent dating mistakes, and manages to learn from those mistakes. He owns a record store, so there quite a few scenes where he is hanging out with his two employees while talking about music. The rest of the cast is fairly impressive, including Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lili Taylor, and Tim Robbins. Iben Hjejle does a fine job as the ex-girlfriend, and apparently never again shows up in American movies because she is happily successful in Europe. Jack Black would have been better on a shorter leash, but at least he doesn't ruin the overall tone of the movie.

Offhand, I can't think of a previous occasion when I saw a movie at just the right moment in my life. High Fidelity is a good, though not great movie, but yesterday it was perfect for me. My girlfriend of the last 15 years decided last week to end our relationship, though it will probably take her another two weeks to move her stuff out of my house. I don't expect that my life will magically conform to the plot of High Fidelity, but it gave me a lot to think about, at a safe distance from my own life.

I'm very sorry for the experience you're going through, Shell.

Sorry to hear it, Shell. And sorry such a mediocre movie had to mark the occasion. If ever you want to talk, even just to talk (that always helped for me), shoot me a PM. love ya

Solo felt like watching an imitation/knock-off Star Wars movie with a few bits of fan-service thrown in for legitimacy. I will add this to the prequel trilogy as something that doesn't exist in my head-canon.

I was honestly jsut talking about this movie last night with my buddy bartender and we were both laughing how much better and "fock-you" it would have been if they blew up the Falcon at the end of the movie for no reason whatsoever. lol, screw you fan boys

ChristopherMD wrote: Solo felt like watching an imitation/knock-off Star Wars movie with a few bits of fan-service thrown in for legitimacy. I will add this to the prequel trilogy as something that doesn't exist in my head-canon.

I haven't seen Solo, but I think that the studio should have used my idea: go totally grindhouse. Low budget, bad stuntwork, and both dialogue and wardrobe straight outta the '70s. Let Tarantino write it, n-word and all.

I have mixed feelings about Get Out. Jordan Peele did a solid job with the screenplay and direction. It's refreshing to see a decent implementation of a new idea, especially at a time when we are getting so many sequels and remakes on the big screen. But the acting ranges from bad to just okay. The story plays very fair with the viewers, to the point where almost nothing that happened in the second half of the movie surprised me because it was all set up clearly in the first half. I do think the movie did a decent job of showing us white folks how it feels to be a minority in an uncomfortable situation. That's important, because we are approaching a time where everybody in America will be a minority, even white people.

High Fidelity is a great film. I have watched it several times, although it's been a while.

Black Barney wrote: I was honestly jsut talking about this movie last night with my buddy bartender and we were both laughing how much better and "fock-you" it would have been if they blew up the Falcon at the end of the movie for no reason whatsoever. lol, screw you fan boys

There would have been real beauty to doing that, and then having Lucas re-edit the original films to have "Millennium Falcon 2" painted on the side of the ship.

High Fidelity is good enough that it reads very differently every time I watch it every few years. Now that I'm in my late 30s, it reads like an accurate portrait of a shitty, selfish educated dude's love life. There's so many little details where you can see that the whole picture you're getting is carefully authored to make himself look better. My favorite is the scene where he's talking about how her friend disclosed three things to her, one being that he straight up cheated on her. He just sort of skims by that one, undoubtedly this deep shattering betrayal, and goes on and on about the other two that have better explanations (e.g. not knowing about the pregnancy). Which is just perfect; exactly the sort of thing I would have done in my 20s while keeping my self-centered, self-righteous narrative of victimization going.

Then it ends on the "positive" of him being able to not cheat on her when a woman flirts with him. Which is bang on "praise me for being a not completely odious partner." Like pathetic bare minimum stuff.

My favorite scene is when Jack Black sings about "the night Laura's daddy died"

For some reason I have been watching all the humans hunting humans movies I could find. And I am surprisingly specific about this. This is not the genre of Hunger Games/Battle Royale where multiple people battle to the death, or the Duel/Hitcher style where someone is tormented by a psycho. No, it pretty much must involve some rich weirdo bored with hunting regular game, and start yearning for the most dangerous game.

The Most Dangerous Game - The original and still a lot of fun. I was watching and thinking that the jungle sets reminded me of the original King Kong, and lo and behold they were the exact same sets.
The Naked Prey - Probably the most unique of these. There was something a bit cringeworthy about it, probably the racial politics, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I think this has my favourite ending of all these films, and the death that has stuck with me the most (the clay cooking death for anyone curious).
Bloodlust! - I have the MST3K version of this, and it is always good for a laugh.
Southern Comfort - An odd film that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Part Vietnam war film, part Deliverance and in the end not really anything, and I am not even sure if it belongs in my official definition of the genre.
Turkey Shoot - If I was going to recommend one of these to an Ameritrasher, it would be this one. Glorious 80s trash.
The Running Man - I think everyone has seen this and knows the score. Standard Arnie fare.
Surviving the Game - The cast is full of Hollywood B-Listers, but I think the fact that I have never liked Ice-T knocks this one down a notch. This is the one I would least recommend, as there is nothing really unique and interesting to it.
Hard Target - John Woo and Van Damme. This has always been one of my guilty pleasures, and watching it again was the first time I realized that one of the bad guys was The Mummy.
Beyond the Reach - An attempt at a more Arthouse version of the genre, and almost pulls it off, but in the end is just a standard forgettable action/drama.

(I have also watched Duel, The Hitcher, Race with the Devil and Series 7: The Contenders in the last few weeks but on reflection they didn't fit my official criteria).

Good on you for not including that Purge poopoo

I remember seeing Series 7: The Contenders in theatres but I can’t remember if it was any good

It was like a reality show

Black Barney wrote: Good on you for not including that Purge poopoo

I remember seeing Series 7: The Contenders in theatres but I can’t remember if it was any good

It was like a reality show

It is a parody of reality shows and I watched it back in the day and thought that it was weak, but on my recent watching it is at least a 7. It is not brilliant, but it does a good job for a black comedy.