Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't read your Argylle review in WaPo. A real read (in all the meanings of that)!! Perhaps Notorious instead.hahaha! (just this week watched her in The Yellow Rolls-Royce (an anthology movie in which Ingrid falls for Omar Sharif and completely changes her politics! at the start of WWII). Thanks as always.
thanks for the head's-up on Notorious, TCM shows it so rarely...
it's in my [current] Hitchcock trinity, along with Vertigo and Shadow of a Doubt, though the rankings shift sometimes depending on what I've just watched.
but Notorious also gave me an incredibly useful piece of shorthand for fcked up guys in movies and life: "he was all twisted up inside," just one more reason to love it.
You can also rent RMN on Amazon, and buy (what does that mean anyway) Autumn Leaves there for $14, which is well worth it. We just watched it last night and it's worth every one of those 4 stars. It's another post-swan song swan song (like Miyazaki, he supposedly was done after his last one), and on top of the Finnish version of romantic comedy, it's a paean to the movies he loves (they come out of watching Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die and you overhear another couple arguing whether it's like Bresson or Godard - everywhere they go there are movie posters on the walls). The last scene is priceless and another movie reference, to Chaplin.
A small quibble here: Rian Johnson did not direct "Return of the Jedi" (that was Richard Marquand), but "The Last Jedi." It's an important distinction because Johnson deserves credit for blowing up some of the egregious fanboy mythologies of the SW prequels and crafting one of the best critiques of empty mansplaining in recent cinema.
The film Just Mercy is based on the book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending wrongly convicted folks who lack the means to defend themselves. It was named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post and other publications. Michael B. Jordan as Stevenson and Jaimie Foxx as Walter McMillan, the prisoner whose case Stevenson has taken up, are great. A good choice for Black History month! If you want to see Stevenson in action his TED talk is available: https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice
We watched R.M.N. last June and really liked it. Now that you are going to watch it---- please explain about the bears. Are they a metaphor, real, both, anti-immigrant vigilantes in costume? What's going on? If there is no answer I'm okay with that but if it is obvious to everyone else then I don't want to be left in the dark in the woods.
I did watch Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim” (2013) on Netflix as you suggested.
It’s hard for me to fathom how two sentient beings can differ so completely on their opinions about one movie. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen a movie as truly awful as Pacific Rim - and I don’t even want to try.
Three and a half stars my eye!
Maybe you should view it again and consider revising your review?
I went to see The Thing (from Another World) when it was first released in 1951. I was 8 years old. I scared the bejeezus outta me. But I got a taste for what became campy horror/sci-fi films; Rodan, Godzilla, Them, etc. (I particularly liked the English dubbing and strange non-synchronization of lip movement with sound.) The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Body Snatchers (my son, who is in the commercial end of the movie biz, ended up living in downtown Sierra Madre for a while) are personal favorites, Earth vs. Flying Saucers almost as much for the special effects.
I can’t recall many recent films of the genre that I liked; I liked the shock value of Alien. I don’t care for re-makes; they seem to spoil the fond memories I have of the originals. Same for most sequels (I liked Godfather II).
I tend to like the monster movies better than the comic book-type ones – the ones above over Superman, Batman (although I liked the first one somewhat), etc. I liked Beetlejuice.
What I didn’t like about Pacific Rim is its ridiculous giant-sized walking protectors, and really, its predictability. My wife and I were able to speak the lines, almost verbatim, before they were uttered by the characters, and predict what the next scenes were going to be before they were shown. (I can just see the studio people saying: “We need a dog in there.”) And the special effects were boring. I must say, however, that we watched it on a small screen, but I don’t see how a large-screen experience would have helped that film much. To us, it offered nothing new or even enjoyable – we kept watching hoping it would get better for us, but it never did.
Rating films is absolutely a matter of personal taste, just like rating wines. I guess we just don’t have the same appreciation for this type of film that you do, but compared with all the other films that were ever made (name all your truly great favorites that define a four-star film), I just think three and a half stars is too many. If the scale is linear (which it probably is not), a three and a half star film would be in the top 12.5% of all the films ever made.
Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't read your Argylle review in WaPo. A real read (in all the meanings of that)!! Perhaps Notorious instead.hahaha! (just this week watched her in The Yellow Rolls-Royce (an anthology movie in which Ingrid falls for Omar Sharif and completely changes her politics! at the start of WWII). Thanks as always.
NOTORIOUS was Truffaut’s favorite, alongside REAR WINDOW. It might be mine as well.
Huge fan of Notorious, along with The 39 Steps. Bergman and Grant have never been better.
thanks for the head's-up on Notorious, TCM shows it so rarely...
it's in my [current] Hitchcock trinity, along with Vertigo and Shadow of a Doubt, though the rankings shift sometimes depending on what I've just watched.
but Notorious also gave me an incredibly useful piece of shorthand for fcked up guys in movies and life: "he was all twisted up inside," just one more reason to love it.
You can also rent RMN on Amazon, and buy (what does that mean anyway) Autumn Leaves there for $14, which is well worth it. We just watched it last night and it's worth every one of those 4 stars. It's another post-swan song swan song (like Miyazaki, he supposedly was done after his last one), and on top of the Finnish version of romantic comedy, it's a paean to the movies he loves (they come out of watching Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die and you overhear another couple arguing whether it's like Bresson or Godard - everywhere they go there are movie posters on the walls). The last scene is priceless and another movie reference, to Chaplin.
A small quibble here: Rian Johnson did not direct "Return of the Jedi" (that was Richard Marquand), but "The Last Jedi." It's an important distinction because Johnson deserves credit for blowing up some of the egregious fanboy mythologies of the SW prequels and crafting one of the best critiques of empty mansplaining in recent cinema.
The film Just Mercy is based on the book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending wrongly convicted folks who lack the means to defend themselves. It was named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post and other publications. Michael B. Jordan as Stevenson and Jaimie Foxx as Walter McMillan, the prisoner whose case Stevenson has taken up, are great. A good choice for Black History month! If you want to see Stevenson in action his TED talk is available: https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice
Watched Bachelorette on your rec and found it truly awful. Nothing about it is funny. Puzzling.
Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelson. I’ll watch them in anything. Mads since Unit One. Ben since Neighbours (probably).
Notorious is one of my top 3 favorite movies of all time. I can watch it over and over.
We watched R.M.N. last June and really liked it. Now that you are going to watch it---- please explain about the bears. Are they a metaphor, real, both, anti-immigrant vigilantes in costume? What's going on? If there is no answer I'm okay with that but if it is obvious to everyone else then I don't want to be left in the dark in the woods.
I did watch Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim” (2013) on Netflix as you suggested.
It’s hard for me to fathom how two sentient beings can differ so completely on their opinions about one movie. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen a movie as truly awful as Pacific Rim - and I don’t even want to try.
Three and a half stars my eye!
Maybe you should view it again and consider revising your review?
TY:
I went to see The Thing (from Another World) when it was first released in 1951. I was 8 years old. I scared the bejeezus outta me. But I got a taste for what became campy horror/sci-fi films; Rodan, Godzilla, Them, etc. (I particularly liked the English dubbing and strange non-synchronization of lip movement with sound.) The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Body Snatchers (my son, who is in the commercial end of the movie biz, ended up living in downtown Sierra Madre for a while) are personal favorites, Earth vs. Flying Saucers almost as much for the special effects.
I can’t recall many recent films of the genre that I liked; I liked the shock value of Alien. I don’t care for re-makes; they seem to spoil the fond memories I have of the originals. Same for most sequels (I liked Godfather II).
I tend to like the monster movies better than the comic book-type ones – the ones above over Superman, Batman (although I liked the first one somewhat), etc. I liked Beetlejuice.
What I didn’t like about Pacific Rim is its ridiculous giant-sized walking protectors, and really, its predictability. My wife and I were able to speak the lines, almost verbatim, before they were uttered by the characters, and predict what the next scenes were going to be before they were shown. (I can just see the studio people saying: “We need a dog in there.”) And the special effects were boring. I must say, however, that we watched it on a small screen, but I don’t see how a large-screen experience would have helped that film much. To us, it offered nothing new or even enjoyable – we kept watching hoping it would get better for us, but it never did.
Rating films is absolutely a matter of personal taste, just like rating wines. I guess we just don’t have the same appreciation for this type of film that you do, but compared with all the other films that were ever made (name all your truly great favorites that define a four-star film), I just think three and a half stars is too many. If the scale is linear (which it probably is not), a three and a half star film would be in the top 12.5% of all the films ever made.
--ED