What Movies Have You Seen Lately?

Quote: ams288

Hopefully it’s better than his last movie Tenet, which was a convoluted mess. I gave it two viewings to try to force myself to enjoy it but it just isn’t a good movie.

Looking forward to Oppenheimer
Tenet was a mess but some scenes were pretty well done

I watched the Steve Jobs biopic on Netflix last night. The actor did a pretty good job but the story portrayal was very weak.

Quote: DRich

I watched the Steve Jobs biopic on Netflix last night. The actor did a pretty good job but the story portrayal was very weak.

Which movie? Ashton Kutcher or Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs?

Edit: just checked Netflix, you watched the Ashton Kutcher one (just called Jobs).

The other one (called Steve Jobs) is MUCH better. Written by Aaron Sorkin. Excellent movie.

Quote: ams288

The other one (called Steve Jobs) is MUCH better. Written by Aaron Sorkin. Excellent movie.

Do you know if that is streaming somewhere?

One of the best WWII movies I've ever seen
On Apple TV
I did the 1 week free trial
Foundation sucked so I bailed on Apple

I just saw Asteroid City. Before I get into my thoughts, here is the trailer.


Direct: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6QOGrUVOC0

I saw the movie based largely by how much I liked Moonlight Kingdom, by the same director, Wes Anderson.

Asteroid City had so much going for it. A cast full of huge names I like, for example Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks, Ed Norton and William Dafoe. I love the concept of a science camp for gifted kids and the setting in the desert southwest. All the ingredients were there for a great movie, except one -- a story.

What the trailer doesn't reveal is all the layers of self reference within the movie itself. I am still not sure I understand it, but it's my interpretation a bad playwright is brainstorming with his cast about his latest play idea. All this happens in black and white. Meanwhile, in color, you see it acted out in color by different actors. It would appear that both the movie and the movie within the movie start out well, but the director doesn't know how to end it and actors are left to improvise. Here things go in different directions, some wanting to just be done with the thing and others wanting some kind of closure to the story.

My favorite part was the nude scene with Scarlet Johansen, which IMDB says was really her.

Maybe I need a second viewing to appreciate this movie more. As of now, it would have been so much better if all the black and white scenes were simply left out.

I welcome other thoughts.

Just watched a 1934 double billing, "Maniac / Narcotic."

Imagine a disjointed, poorly crafted, absurdist version of "Reefer Madness," veering to dark corners best left alone.

Very strange, but enjoyable in its own weird way.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Always good to watch Indy kick some Nazi ass! Honestly curious if this movie qualifies as “woke” because it’s anti-Nazi?

Finally was able to see the new film Renfield. I got a DVD, supposedly not to be available till December, but available now and at a lower price than at first, seems it has gone down pretty quick in popularity? I like Nicolas Cage and Awkwafina as well, so I knew I would most likely enjoy this movie, and I did. But I think I know some reasons that brought it up short a bit. Cage and the make-up department was really great, to get that out of the way. Again, yes I enjoyed the movie.

Not going to worry about spoilers of a minor nature, which will be in the below.

In spite of liking the movie, I have to say the below.

There are monsters in movies so classic that the basic “suspension of disbelief” about the reality of it’s existence is just not going to be the problem, and this can probably be said about Dracula more than others. The flip side of this, though, is that it can become an infraction to alter any previous tradition. You wouldn’t want to see it portrayed that Dracula didn’t hate garlic and loved to go out in the daytime, for example, at least I wouldn’t, even though this was a “comedy horror film”.

Did the film make that mistake? They left it possible that Dracula will come back, that their efforts to destroy him may just delay that return. I approve of that. The Prince of D’s lore got some new wrinkles, particularly that he could, through misfortune, be reduced in power until he fed well for a period of time. I at least had not seen in a movie before, but I, and I think audiences, were good with that. Dracula lore stayed intact just fine.

Renfield, though, was something new, enabled with super-powers. No longer a whimpering slug, he is able to rip bodies into pieces with his bare hands. [Oh yes, plenty of gore in this movie] Since this was a comedy, maybe this infraction, a super Renfield, should be forgiven? I can say though I would not like this as a new tradition.

A bigger transgression is in the matter of the Undead. A rule that really should not be broken, ever, is that the Undead ‘gonna be the Undead‘ if I can put it that way. If Renfield is to be portrayed as up and about, youngish in fact, yet shown to be the very same Stoker’s Renfield of the end of the 19th century, then Renfield is one of the Undead. Not to mention endowed with Vampire-provided superpowers. He can’t, in the end, survive this film as a normal human being, but, spoiler alert, he instead triumphantly does so. Perhaps it was OK to have him try to redeem himself, maybe not doomed to be damned, but to just resume a normal life? No.

Yes, it’s true that maybe only a handful of people care about these things, how many walked away muttering about improper Undead portrayal? But something ate away at initial popularity of the movie I think. Is it possible these things bothered people on some level? I do wonder.

I always think of the Renfield reduced to eating flies and rats, I don’t think there is anyone on either board who was alive when the most famous original monsters appeared. Some of the movies caused quite a stir when they first came out.

You ever see see the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. I don’t really like any hack and slash movies, but that is campy B movie excellence.