What movie are you viewing at the moment?

[neo2008]

DOWNSIZING



Want to live a life of leisure? Own and live in a huge mansion? Hey just downsize !!
Im not talking about throwing out all of your credit cards,selling your house and car,but literally changing your body size from 6 feet to inches !!
Such is the story of Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) who decides to "GO SMALL" and live a better life.
When the movie focuses on the procedure to go small and the life changes it offers it really excels,and humorous and interesting.
Damon does fine as the everyday joe who is thrown a couple of curve balls in life.
When it takes a turn and yes i liked the interwoven messages about the environment,exclusion and class struggle,but it stalls when it dwells to much on the aforementioned and i mean it stalls !! Fortunately there are bright spots tied to the meandering portions including Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran,a Vietnamese activist
At first she comes off as a racial stereotype but then becomes rather charming.
There are also good turns by Christoph Waltz and Kristen Wiig.
The film definitely could have cut about 15 minutes from it's 135 minutes run time,because even though i liked it's message about service to others and finding fufillment in life it just felt like the story was going in circles especially in its last 30 minutes.
Enough charm for me to recommend it

Scale of 1-10 a 7½


The Greatest Showman





I dont like musicals,but i love the circus.So surely The Greatest Showman would be easy to sit through....well yes and no.
The film does a decent job of laying enough of a background foundation of P. T. Barnum,(Hugh Jackman ) so i could actually have enough of a connection to the man.
Zac Efron and Jackman can handle material like this in their sleep,so no problems there.I was impressed by Zendaya as Anne Wheeler, an acrobat, trapeze artist who actually did her own trapeze stunts in the film.Keala Settle as Lettie Lutz, a bearded lady was a revelation to me with great vocal work ,she wont have any trouble finding work in musicals if thats what she wants,also making an impression is Sam Humphrey as Charles Stratton, a dwarf performer who is also known by his stage name of General Tom Thumb.
Even though Michelle Williams as Charity Barnum, the wife of P.T. Barnum is in and out of the film she still makes quite an impression.

At first i thought the musical numbers were going to be so back to back that there wouldnt be any room for some dramatic moments.Fortunately the movie gives us a balance of the two
The movie did feel a bit rushed at times and some dramatic scenes ran a bit cold.
There are rousing musical numbers that are couple with some good choreography and production design.
As long as you dont go in thinking you are going to get this deep in depth biography of Barnum you should enjoy it for what it is like i did.

Scale of 1-10 a 7½


FATHER FIGURES






After finding out the truth about their father when their mom Helen (Glenn Close) confesses after 40 years that the man they knew as their father was just a made up story fraternal twins Kyle Reynolds (Owen Wilson) Peter Reynold( Ed Helms) go on a road trip to find their real dad and hopefully bond with him,some fun moments and chaos ensues.
I enjoyed watching the two leads and they have great chemistry.
There's plenty of toilet humor and laugh out loud moments as the brothers cross paths with J. K. Simmons ,Katt Williams
Terry Bradshaw ,Ving Rhames and Christopher Walken.
Some scenes didnt work for me and hit those painfully unfunny walls.The couple sitting next to me arguing was a bit more entertaining during those scenes.
The comedy does find it's footing again,once it pulls itself out of some forced scenarios and actually has some touching turns near the end.
Definitely worth a rental on a slow night

Scale of 1-10 a 6½

[Mal Hombre]

Got the Sean Connery James Bond boxset,So obviously We're watching :

[Brecht]

Pleasantville (1998)



Trailer

David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are your typical 90s teenagers, the latter being slutty and extroverted while her shy brother prefers to hang out at home watching television. Since their mother (Jane Kaczmarek) is away to hook up with a much younger lover, David prepares himself to watch the marathon of Pleasantville, a 1950s sitcom about the super-square Parker family. But he's faced with a problem since his sister wants to watch a concert on MTV with some heartthrob from her school. The siblings end up fighting over the remote control until it breaks which complicates the situation even more because the TV cannot be turned on manually. All of a sudden, a mysterious TV repairman show up. After a brief Pleasantville trivia, David is handed a strange remote control. David and Jennifer resume their fighting and end up transported into the black and white TV show where everything is perfect and where Dick is still just a name.

Apart from some hilarious moments, Pleasantville is made of the usual Hollywood ingredients. But it was a pleasant watch nonetheless and not my first viewing. It is an interesting critique of racism and backwards "family values" but, albeit welcome, adding a socially critical message is no longer an act of bravery without personal risks involved. The people who were really critical of racism and the suffocating social conditions in 1950s America were outcast by the very same Hollywood and paid with their careers, some even their lives. Maybe I'm reading too much into a film like this, I don't know. If you're looking for some cute entertainment, Pleasantville does the job.

[movieman88]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

Got the Sean Connery James Bond boxset,So obviously We're watching :

Nice, I have had Thunderball sitting out for few days meaning to watch.

[Devius]

Originally Posted by movieman88

1.) He was pretty badass in the New 52 Earth 2 book.

2.) They basically wanted to adapt the New 52 Justice League origin book and/or its animated adaption JL - War but didn't want to jump to Darkseid right off the bat.
3.) Originally they were still expecting Snyder to direct Justice League as a 2 part arc, they planned for the 2nd film to reveal Darkseid and delve into the apocalyptic future teased in Bvs so they had to set him up by using one of his minions for the 1st film.
Dessad isn't a physical threat, Kalibak is too bestial and might have come off like Doomsday but worse because he has to talk, The Furies were a valid option but they are kinda undistinctive & may have just felt like generic evil versions of the amazons.

...Annnd we're back (albeit filled-up with Turkey and alcohol)....

I agree with Wendigo - the first JL movie's foe should have been Starro:



OK - we all know he was working with Thanos and the the Chitauri in the first Avengers film, but to me it was fitting that Loki was the initial foe to unite Marvel's cinematic heroes, as this somewhat mirrored his role in the first Avengers comic.



I had read the first issue of "NEW 52: Earth 2" but Steppenwolf just left me thinking "Meh" when I watched Justice League...

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by Rogerbh

Since it is nearing Christmas, I watched Die Hard (1988) again. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/

RIP Alan Rickman

Yippie-Ki-Yay, Motherfucker!

What's not well-known is that Willis suffered major hearing loss during the filming of Die Hard. It happened while they were filming the table scene in which he shoots one of the bad guys from beneath a table. John McTiernan wanted the shots and explosions to sound really loud. That's why he had the actors use some extra loud blanks. Unfortunately for Willis, the gun was too close to his left ear when he "shot" the bad guy. This accident left him almost deaf.

[Wendigo]

The Grinn (2017)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3796876/


Classed as a horror film but although there are some spooky elements late on it is really about the onset of dementia seen through the eyes of the sufferer.

It was a struggle getting through this, I watched about 20 minutes and was hit by a wave of WTF but I decided to watch it again past the pain barrier and it is better than what I thought it would be.

Vance wakes up alone in a house and is led by a series of flashbacks and pointers to relive past events. There's an odd masked character that gives the film the title but it really adds nothing of value. There is a twist in the end that saves the film as it was starting to grate on me a little later on. Worth a watch if you are bored

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Gve4jvic0


These pretty much capture the action

[Wendigo]

Panteon Woods (2015)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5143270/


Riley Rey is an amateur cryptozoologist with her own youtube channel, in search of more uploads she and her older sister, Rebecca, who is a wannabe cinematographer, head off with their guide and tracker, Greg, to look for Chanoc, rumoured to be a local werewolf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JH-goxgyvE

[Wendigo]

In the Devil's Courthouse (2011)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1745912/


When his sister and her boyfriend are attacked by something in the woods Steve receives a distressed call from Sis and sets out to rescue her.
The group are under attack from the mangiest group of alleged native American beasties you will ever see, not Bigfoot but some odd monkey like critters. It is apparently based on true sightings in North Carolina , however this snoozefest is unlikely to instil fear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SV-AwvAIi0





To even try to pretend this has any real merits would be impossible

[Motorboater]

Late last night, I saw a movie called Best In Bed. It was a French comedy.

The lead actress in the film, Laurence Arne, is quality french pussy.

Magnifique!

Edit: In French. The film is called A Coup Sur.