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

Black Adam was also completely off-brand for Johnson. Surprised he let that happen, given that he was one of the producers.

Watched The Banshees of Inisherin last night. It's good, but complicated. Some of it is just plain crazy.

It's the story of two long-time friends on a tiny Irish island village. The older (Brendan Gleeson) decides he doesn't want to be friends with the younger (Colin Ferrell) anymore, and weirdness ensues. They both give great performances, and the story has comedy in the first half then tragedy in the back half.

By the end of it, I felt like it was all a parable of the IRA and other factions in Ireland. Unfortunately, I'm almost completely ignorant of those details, so I couldn't quite make the parallels even though I'm pretty certain they were there. Can anyone enlighten me?

Wrote about it here: dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2022/11/f...ingered-parable.html

You're right in that it's partially a parable of the Irish Civil War and the aftereffects of that (which include the modern IRA) but there's a lot more going on, as well.

Just watched Banshees. Fantastic.

I never liked Colin Farrell when he was younger. Not sure why, exactly.

He won me over with The Lobster and In Bruges, and I've been a huge fan ever since. I still think his best performance is in Killing of a Sacred Deer, but his work in The Banshees of Inisherin may equal it.

I've heard he's equally fantastic in After Yang, which I hope to get to before the end of the year.

On vacation and decided to watch some 80s animated movies.

First up was Rock and Rule. When I saw this way back on late night HBO as a tween or early teen, I loved it. Now it’s merely ok. Story is pretty thin and not well written, but the art is enjoyable and the music scenes work.

After that, I saw Starchaser for the first time. I like this one, it’s got some cool ideas for what is a Star Wars inspired movie. I’d watch this again.

Lastly, Fire and Ice. My friend (still friends after all these decades) introduced this to me in high school. At the time, I didn’t appreciate it. This second viewing was much better.

I saw Starchaser in the theater. The 3D craze was in full swing at that point. A hand drawn 3D cartoon was....interesting.

While I appreciate the immersive type of 3D Cameron uses for the Avatar films, I do kind wish for the "it's coming right for you!" gimmicks of yesteryear from time to time.

I do love 3d. I think it is at its best when it is immersive, but the fun stuff is also great.

I think it was Monsters vs Aliens that had a 3d silhouette of a person standing in the theater that I found pretty funny.

n815e wrote: I do love 3d. I think it is at its best when it is immersive, but the fun stuff is also great.

I think it was Monsters vs Aliens that had a 3d silhouette of a person standing in the theater that I found pretty funny.

Towards the end of Avatar 2 there is a scene with a crowd around something and a guy stood up in front of me, there was a good 3-4 seconds when I thought "wooooooooow Cameron did a good job blocking this scene!"

n815e wrote: First up was Rock and Rule. When I saw this way back on late night HBO as a tween or early teen, I loved it. Now it’s merely ok. Story is pretty thin and not well written, but the art is enjoyable and the music scenes work.

I had (have maybe?) a grubby old videotape of this from HBO that I watched countless times over the mid-late 80s. It had a strong hook in my teen brain, so much so that almost 40 years later bits of dialogue still come out of my head.

With Cheap Trick, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop, that soundtrack was stacked. I bought the DVD release, I'll have to dig it up and rewatch it, I think it's been about since that came out since I've watched it.

Doesn't really matter, anytime someone says "hex" my brain says "ooh two of em, that's even worse!"

Saw The Whale. May be the best thing Aronofsky has ever done, which is setting the bar quite high. Easily the best thing Brendan Fraser has ever done.

dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2022/12/being-honest.html

Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas was a delight, as expected from Aardman.

I’m not sure whether I prefer Glass Onion or Knives Out. Knives had the better story and structure by not making Blanc the lead, but I prefer the mystery of Onion. It actually feels like something you could solve, even if critical evidence isn’t revealed until halfway through. Nice to see Kate Hudson again and to see Craig smile.

When I was in high school my family made several attempts at running the Star Wars trilogy on New Year’s Eve but always failed. So Christmas break feels like a good time to finally share A New Hope with my oldest boys. They seemed to enjoy it alright. It kept their attention for the full two hours which is an achievement in itself. Every once in a while they’d ask who a character was, and I’d have to bite my tongue from giving a full biography of Figrin D’an’s band and their instruments. They can put in the work and learn that from the CCG like I did.

It was the first time I’ve watched in at least a decade and the first time I’ve seen it in widescreen or with Lucas’ edits. The Jabba scene was a waste. It literally repeats lines from the Greedo showdown. And why have a lizard literally cover the shot for three seconds? I used to be ambivalent to the edits. Most of them are used to expand sets, make Mos Eisley larger and more lively or add more maneuvers to the Death Star attack, but then I saw a breakdown of the effects as designed in the ‘70’s. Now it feels like Lucas spitting on all that work and innovation for something that doesn’t really look better.

And yet it holds up. The costumes are timeless. Ford’s self-centeredness is never not charming. Guinness and Cushing class the joint up. It just looks and sounds good. The editing gets so much out of the launch from Yavin 4 despite being like just four shots.

I have heard that The Banshees of Inisherin is a good movie. I watched it for about 15 or 20 minutes and bailed because only one thing was happening and it bored me silly. His best friend is no longer his best friend but won't say why. Okay. Bored now.

My wife and I went to see Avatar: So Many Space Whales at 11:00 in 3D, on an Imax screen. It's the cinematic equivalent of day drinking. I won't argue with the man criticisms of this movie but I enjoyed much of it. The 3D was top notch, but the effects sort of alternated between being too bright and looking like a tv show shot on video, or somewhat different and weird when the humans and blue people were in daylight. I don't regret watching it, but it felt a bit long. At times I was thinking I should go see some amazing Imax nature documentaries.

Knives Out 2: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery - I enjoyed it more than the previous one which I don't recall liking more than the average movie. The mystery was solvable but wasn't the resolution I expected so I guess that's good. In the end I'm glad this became a franchise if there's more like this in the future.