Movie Hindsight 2020 | Page 10 | The Boneyard

Movie Hindsight 2020

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The Way, Way Back (2013) - Watched this film over the weekend. Story of a 14 year old kid who is not at all happy with his family life. His parents are divorced, and his mother is seeing a guy who the kid cannot stand. To make matters worse, the mom and the boyfriend decide to spend the summer at the boyfriend’s vacation house on Cape Cod, and take the kid with him. The kid is not at all happy about having to be in close proximity to the boyfriend, and for the most part becomes pretty sullen and uncommunicative. The only bright side to the situation is when the kid meets a worker at the local amusement park played by Sam Rockwell. This film is worth watching just to see what Rockwell does with his role, as he pretty much steals this movie.
 

nwhoopfan

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The Way, Way Back (2013)

I really enjoyed this movie, seen it several times. Rockwell is great, but there are several other good performances in this. Pretty much everything that happens at the water park is gold.
 
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I really enjoyed this movie, seen it several times. Rockwell is great, but there are several other good performances in this. Pretty much everything that happens at the water park is gold.

If you ask me, the water park is an alternate universe all to its own.
 

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Well that was different. Watched "Monsoon" on Amazon. The 2018 version, because apparently several films share the same name. Looks like it hit the film festival circuit but wasn't acquired for a general release. Anyway...mostly watched it because Katherine Hughes is in it. Small budget indie. Hughes is besties with the guy next door, they both just graduated high school. They've been platonic but then kinda get together, have a nice outing together, on the way home they are in a car wreck and she doesn't make it. I don't think that's really a spoiler because it happens in the first few minutes. The guy of course has a hard time moving forward. She still gets plenty of screen time though because in his mind she's still there and they talk to each other frequently. It's fairly slow, but I enjoyed it overall. It's pretty sad of course, but not a completely depressing or hopeless movie. It's almost entirely filmed in Arizona, some stunning scenery during a part where there's a road trip to Sedona.
 

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Egads. "Vivarium." Let me do you a favor and just skip it. I love Imogen Poots. She does mostly indies, which are really hit and miss...but I'm having a hard time remembering the last film she was in that I actually liked. Her performance was fine, but the movie overall was bizarre, dull and utterly pointless to me. The trailers gave it kind of a Twilight Zone vibe, but it didn't live up to that. I had fairly low expectations after seeing lukewarm reviews, but was still very disappointed.
 

Dove

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The Vast of Night (2019) - Overall I liked this movie. Mrs. Dove fell asleep. Timeline is one evening. The setting is a New Mexicon town.

A slow burn and set in 1950s. A switchboard operator (she) and a radio station personality (he) are the stars. She gets a weird sound on one of the lines. She calls other operators to verify and then calls her radio buddy who is intrigued. He confirms something is up.

They investigate and it turns out to be...

Intriguing camera work. Check it out.
 
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storrsroars

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The Vast of Night (2019) - Overall I liked this movie. Mrs. Dove fell asleep. Timeline is one evening. The setting is a New Mexicon town.

A slow burn and set in 1950s. A switchboard operator (she) and a radio station personality (he) are the stars. She gets a weird sound on one of the lines. She calls other operators to verify and then calls her radio buddy who is intrigued. He confirms something is up.

They investigate and it turns out to be...

Intriguing camera work. Check it out.

OTOH, I found it a total waste of time with no payoff, unless your thing is watching a somewhat chunky adolescent girl in catholic school uniform running around. There's a lot of that.
 

Dove

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OTOH, I found it a total waste of time with no payoff, unless your thing is watching a somewhat chunky adolescent girl in catholic school uniform running around. There's a lot of that.
My wife hated the movie. I found it different in a good way.
 

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"The Black Hole" (1979). I saw it in the theater as a kid. Not sure I've seen it since. Some of it has stuck with me all this time. I remember being terrified of the robot Maximilian. Several scenes I distinctly remembered. I can't think of many movies I've seen once, 40 years ago, that left that kind of impact. It certainly looks dated, the FX was probably really good for its time. Some recognizable cast members like Robert Forster, Anthony Perkins and Ernest Borgnine. A bit slow paced, but fairly much kept my interest. I see lots of negative (more current) reviews about it being a bad Star Wars knockoff, also a few references to 2001. Came out the same year as Alien. While it may not be a classic, I don't think it should be completely dismissed. Seems like it's had a few knockoffs of its own over the years, discovering a long missing ship in space and surprisingly finding a maniacal captain in charge and the ship not derelect seems like a common enough trope I've seen in numerous other films. There is some mystery left at the end. Was Dr. Hans Reinhardt really running the ship or was Maximilian? The end goes a bit psychedelic (that's mostly where the 2001 comparisons come from), was it a depiction of heaven and hell? There's a mention of Dante's Inferno early in the film, seems like it was coming back to that, too. The physics of outer space were nearly completely ignored, so there's that you have to overlook. Anyway, I got it from the library, was worth the nostalgia trip for me.
 
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"The Black Hole" (1979). I saw it in the theater as a kid. Not sure I've seen it since. Some of it has stuck with me all this time. I remember being terrified of the robot Maximilian. Several scenes I distinctly remembered. I can't think of many movies I've seen once, 40 years ago, that left that kind of impact. It certainly looks dated, the FX was probably really good for its time. Some recognizable cast members like Robert Forster, Anthony Perkins and Ernest Borgnine. A bit slow paced, but fairly much kept my interest. I see lots of negative (more current) reviews about it being a bad Star Wars knockoff, also a few references to 2001. Came out the same year as Alien. While it may not be a classic, I don't think it should be completely dismissed. Seems like it's had a few knockoffs of its own over the years, discovering a long missing ship in space and surprisingly finding a maniacal captain in charge and the ship not derelect seems like a common enough trope I've seen in numerous other films. There is some mystery left at the end. Was Dr. Hans Reinhardt really running the ship or was Maximilian? The end goes a bit psychedelic (that's mostly where the 2001 comparisons come from), was it a depiction of heaven and hell? There's a mention of Dante's Inferno early in the film, seems like it was coming back to that, too. The physics of outer space were nearly completely ignored, so there's that you have to overlook. Anyway, I got it from the library, was worth the nostalgia trip for me.

Hell yeah, I had a "The Black Hole" lunchbox when I was in Kindergarten.

I need to watch this movie again.
 

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"The November Man" is a solid espionage thriller starring Pierce Brosnan and Olga Kurylenko. Brosnan's Bond movies were terrible but he's done plenty of good work since then.
 

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Palm Springs (2020) - Available on Hulu. Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti star in this time loop romantic comedy that is surprisingly good. I can't give any details of the plot without spoiling it, so I won't. The movie is funny, well written, and more respectful of the time travel aspects of the story than many sci-fi movies that use time travel. The stars aren't great actors, but they are great for their roles. Milioti in particular is effective at being the average every-woman. She doesn't have the looks or charisma of the typical romcom lead actress, but that is the point. She is a regular person. Samberg is always a comedian trying to act, so Milioti has to do the heavy lifting in this movie.
 

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"The November Man" is a solid espionage thriller starring Pierce Brosnan and Olga Kurylenko. Brosnan's Bond movies were terrible but he's done plenty of good work since then.
"November Man" was a decent watch, but on Bond, Brosnan's portrayal was at least less campy than Roger Moore's.

Perhaps my favorite Brosnan role is in "The Matador", as it's so out of character, hysterically rude and irredeemable.
 

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Perhaps my favorite Brosnan role is in "The Matador", as it's so out of character, hysterically rude and irredeemable.

Have you seen "The Foreigner?" I thought that was really good. Brosnan locked in a battle of wills with Jackie Chan. First completely serious, non comedic role I've seen Chan in.
 

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on Bond, Brosnan's portrayal was at least less campy than Roger Moore's

I'm probably in the minority, but I actually like Moore's turn in the role. With Brosnan, it wasn't so much him, it was everything else. Invisible cars, surfing tidal waves, bad guy with a diamond encrusted face, it was just so over the top dumb. The era did give us the film debut of Rosamund Pike, so at least it has that going for it.
 
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Saw Greyhound with Tom Hanks on Apple TV this weekend. Was supposed to be released in theaters, but due to COVID, was purchased and issued out on Apple TV instead. Solid war movie. Decent individual performances. It was probably a little predictable and cliched, but then again....it was Tom Hanks and he carries scene after scene.

There's one point in the last 5 minutes where he's staring out into the water and he doesn't say a thing, he just gulps like he's emotional. It lasts for a second....but that's his magic. Sold the movie for me with that one unspoken gesture. B+ for me.
 

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"Waking Madison" was fairly disorienting and confusing, but by design. It was about a woman with dissociative identity disorder (used to be called multiple personality disorder), so life for someone with the condition or those close to them I would think is disorienting and confusing. I've seen a few movies portray this, probably not particularly accurately. It was decent, had some good performances. Low budget indie, don't know if it ever hit theaters. What added to my confusion is that Amazon listed the primary actors as Taryn Manning, Elizabeth Shue and Imogen Poots. None of them was the main character. I kept wondering who she was, totally reminded me of Sarah Roemer. Well...that's because it was her. Really different role than anything else I've seen her in. Different role for Poots as well.
 
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"November Man" was a decent watch, but on Bond, Brosnan's portrayal was at least less campy than Roger Moore's.

Perhaps my favorite Brosnan role is in "The Matador", as it's so out of character, hysterically rude and irredeemable.

"The Matador" is great. Thanks for reminding me of that one.
 

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There's just so many movies you never hear about. "Operator" has several actors I like that aren't A listers but I think deserve more recognition: Mae Whitman, Martin Starr and Nat Faxon. This is the 2016 movie with this title, apparently there was a completely different 2015 movie with the same title. Anyway, a bit hard to categorize, I guess romantic dramedy? Starr lets work interfere with his personal life when his wife, Whitman, becomes the voice of the automated phone system he helped design for a healthcare program. Faxon is the lead on his work team. A bit uneven, but I thought it was worth a watch.
 
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The Way, Way Back (2013) - Watched this film over the weekend. Story of a 14 year old kid who is not at all happy with his family life. His parents are divorced, and his mother is seeing a guy who the kid cannot stand. To make matters worse, the mom and the boyfriend decide to spend the summer at the boyfriend’s vacation house on Cape Cod, and take the kid with him. The kid is not at all happy about having to be in close proximity to the boyfriend, and for the most part becomes pretty sullen and uncommunicative. The only bright side to the situation is when the kid meets a worker at the local amusement park played by Sam Rockwell. This film is worth watching just to see what Rockwell does with his role, as he pretty much steals this movie.
Best part is, a lot of it was filmed at Water Wiz in Wareham MA. Since closed. Just down the road from where we lived in Plymouth.
 
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Saw Greyhound with Tom Hanks on Apple TV this weekend. Was supposed to be released in theaters, but due to COVID, was purchased and issued out on Apple TV instead. Solid war movie. Decent individual performances. It was probably a little predictable and cliched, but then again....it was Tom Hanks and he carries scene after scene.

There's one point in the last 5 minutes where he's staring out into the water and he doesn't say a thing, he just gulps like he's emotional. It lasts for a second....but that's his magic. Sold the movie for me with that one unspoken gesture. B+ for me.

I saw it too. Pretty good and free.
 

Dove

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Egads. "Vivarium." Let me do you a favor and just skip it. I love Imogen Poots. She does mostly indies, which are really hit and miss...but I'm having a hard time remembering the last film she was in that I actually liked. Her performance was fine, but the movie overall was bizarre, dull and utterly pointless to me. The trailers gave it kind of a Twilight Zone vibe, but it didn't live up to that. I had fairly low expectations after seeing lukewarm reviews, but was still very disappointed.
My sister in law has officially moved in with us. This means movies 24/7.

They put this on. Very strange. I am not a Jesse Eisenberg fan at all.
 

nwhoopfan

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I am not a Jesse Eisenberg fan at all.

He's hit and miss for me. Often fairly annoying, but I was okay with him in a few roles, like Now You See Me and Zombieland.
 

nwhoopfan

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"Ways To Live Forever" is about a pair of 12 year old boys, best friends, who are very sick. One has leukemia, I'm not sure if they ever said the other has the same thing or something else. They take a very practical look at what they want to do with their life with probably a limited amount of time to live it. It's sad, but not an utterly depressing movie. Both of the actors did good, I wasn't familiar with them. The whole cast is good, the parents of the main character, his little sister, a nurse specialist that comes to the house to check on him weekly or so (he's stopped chemo after 2 previous rounds of treatment). The cousin of the other boy is played by Ella Purnell, a favorite of mine. She wasn't on screen much but she had a lot of presence.
 

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