Recently Seen in 2019 | Page 9 | The Boneyard

Recently Seen in 2019

Dove said:
Young actress, Glynnis O'Connor, co-stars in her her second straight movie (Ode To Billy Joe [w/ Robbie Benson]). She had a smokin' bod.
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Glynnis O'Connor was my favorite, I loved her overbite.
 
A bit of a Felicity Jones kick lately. "Albatross" was decent but not the most pleasant watch. Her parents argue constantly at the cruddy little hotel they run. She's just trying to get to university and get away from them. A new staff member at the hotel (Jessica Brown Findlay) throws everything into chaos.

"Chalet Girl" was a lot of fun. Jones was a former competitive skateboarder that gives it up when her mother dies in a car accident. Several years later she takes a new job at a chalet in the Austrian Alps working for a super rich family (Bill Nighy, Brooke Shields, Ed Westwick and his soon to be fiance Sophia Bush that always tags along). Tamsin Egerton is also on the staff. Jones eventually tries snowboarding and quickly gets good at it. Beautiful mountain scenery, good cast, feel good story.

I tried watching "The Tempest" but I had to shut it down, too weird.
 
Also watched "Storm Boy." Takes a little while to get going but really enjoyed it. Geoffrey Rush recounts the story to his granddaughter of when he was a boy and nurtured and raised 3 orphaned pelicans. Most of the movie is flashbacks but it jumps back and forth. Jai Courtney plays the dad in the flashback scenes. Really different role for him. The pelicans steal the movie. Set in Australia.
 
"When We First Met" was a fun, lightweight rom com from Netflix. Adam Devine doing his usual zany thing. He meets Alexandria Daddario, his dream girl, at a party, but quickly gets friend zoned. 3 years later he has a melt down at her engagement party. Luckily for him he finds the photo booth at his go to bar is a time machine. So he keeps going back to that first meeting to do things differently to try to end up with her. Law of unintended consequences, he keeps messing up no matter what he does. It drags a bit w/ the time travel/do over central concept. Like many rom coms the best friend (or roommate or sister) of the female lead kind of steals the show. I'd never heard of Shelley Hennig before but she stood out in this.
 
I saw "Under the Silver Lake" recently, it sucked but I was intrigued by Grace Van Patten. She stars in another Netflix original--"Tramps." Kind of slow, but interesting enough. Two young adults are involved in some kind of shady deal, they are supposed to exchange briefcases with someone else at a train platform. But they mess it up and spend most of the film trying to retrieve the correct briefcase. Anyway she reminds me just a bit of Shailene Woodley. Turns out she's the niece of Dick Van Patten. Kind of crazy but her dad is the about 30 years younger brother of Dick. Not sure how that's even possible to have a 30 year age gap in siblings.
 
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I was going to skip "Murder Mystery" from Netflix (Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, among others), but saw some decent reviews of it. Plus Gemma Arterton is in it. It was mediocre at best. Sandler is just kind of grating on the nerves.

Enjoyed another Netflix original much more--"The Last Summer." A bunch of high school grads in Chicago enjoying the last few months before they head off different directions to college or whatever life has in store for them. Ensemble, jumped around between a bunch of different characters. A bit of comedy but more drama. I thought it was solid. Of course the usual w/ everyone in the cast is 25+ playing 18 year olds. And the actress playing the mother of one of them is a whole 11 years older than her "daughter." You gotta love Hollywood. Oh, and Halston Sage. 'Nuf said.
 
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The Favourite - Colman was so good and totally deserved her best actress nod. Since the time I first saw her in the movie Confetti I've always thought she would have great success. Great direction and performances all around. I was really struck by the editing in this one, something I don't often take note of.

Toy Story 4 - Because #3 ended on such a sweet note and seemed to complete the trilogy so perfectly I was curious how they would make this one worthwhile, they did well with the direction they took. Probably would come in last if I were to rank all 4 movies but still better than 99% of ANY other animated films out there. This was also the first movie we were brave enough to take our kids to (2 1/2 year old girl, 16 month old boy), they freaking loved it of course and were completely well-behaved kids. Double win! and probably speaks to how good a movie it was since there was maybe only one lull that my son lost some patience with the whole ordeal over.

Us - A let down. Would've worked better as a 10 minute short story on Peele's Outer Limits revival. I like my horror movies more moody and atmospheric, and while this had that, it otherwise collapsed under the weight of it's ridiculous premise. Social commentary is fine, but this just came off as silly. The twist was easy to call as well.
 
Robin Hood - It’s made it’s way to HBO, five minutes of it was enough to say — stay far, far away.
 
"The Dawn Wall" was a fairly good documentary about pioneering a new route on El Capitan in Yosemite, possibly the hardest rock climb anywhere in the world. It was too long though, some pacing problems. The pitch that one of the climber's got stuck on just dragged way too much. In reality he was stuck for days, but in a film it wasn't necessary to belabor it that much. Also it was weird that with about 15 or 20 minutes left in the film all of a sudden you see Tommy Caldwell's kid for the first time. Seems like it should've been noted he has a son earlier on. That was just jarring. They presented this woman Becca as her girlfriend, yet they were married 3 years before his historic climb. Again, weird choice by the filmmakers.

Interesting compare/contrast w/ "Free Solo." Caldwell's climb was much harder in technical terms, but they were roped up and fell countless times during their 3 weeks they spent on the wall. Honnold obviously did not have the option of falling and completed his climb in a number of hours. Entirely different endeavors.
 
Mano said:
Robin Hood - It’s made it’s way to HBO, five minutes of it was enough to say — stay far, far away.
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I am a glutton for punishment so I watched the whole thing. What a pile of garbage.
 
storrsroars said:
So... Yesterday. Light entertainment Couple of twists I wasn't expecting that worked. Well acted by the two leads. McKinnon was a bit over the top. Sheerhan was ok - not someone I follow, but it was a self-effacing role for him. They left one of the best jokes from the preview out of the final cut. Other things were also eliminated from collective memory, in no discernable pattern. Could've done more with the premise, but it worked nonetheless. Good date movie. Wife & I enjoyed it.
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Just saw this this afternoon. I am more than willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of a good movie but I’m kind of pissed.

I get how a worldwide electrical event could have eliminated certain things, and I get how only a few people might not have been affected—guessing it was because he was in the air and not touching anything during the outage. I’m a little less clear on how physical objects that existed could have been removed, but I would have let that go. My issue is that I was expecting at least some explanation of the logic behind what was actually eliminated, which, by our count was: Beatles, Oasis, cigarettes, Coca-Cola and Harry Potter. And if we follow the logic that the Beatles never existing means John Lennon was still alive, doesn’t it follow that if Oasis never existed, Jack never plays “Wonderwall” to enchant Ellie?

How do you hint at the melody to “Something” during the Ellie and Jack scenes during the last hour and never feature or play the song?

Bonus points to Mrs. 8893 for noticing that the Brits were referring to miles, not kilometers.

Nonetheless, a decent watch. Just wouldn’t rush to see it in the theater.
 
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The trailers for "Shazam!" didn't do anything for me, looked fairly goofy. I gave it a try anyway on DVD. I shut it off halfway thru, then tried again the next day. I did not enjoy it. Just too silly, yet some tonal dissonance with some horror elements. It was as if they were trying to remake "Big" as a superhero movie, but were missing most of the charm, and Zachary Levi is no Tom Hanks. Missed the mark by miles. Poor DCEU just can't get out of their own way.

For something completely different, I watched "Teen Spirit" about a fictitious British singing competition TV show. Elle Fanning was in the lead role. It was fairly slow paced, but held my interest. It wasn't great, but I liked it. Apparently Elle does all her own singing in the film and did a credible job.
 
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I read that the Shogun remake has been delayed because FX didn't like the script. I wish it was going to be on HBO or Showtime or someone with a real budget, but I am still looking forward to it.

I loved the book. It covers one of the most interesting periods of any country's history, the ascent of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The first mini-series, while good, had some problems that could be fixed in a remake. The main, and really only, problem was Richard Chamberlain, who is just scalitoing terrible. He overacts, and was not credible at all as a leader or as someone with the subtlety to navigate Japanese politics at this point in history. It would be like casting Laura Dern in Game of Thrones. I can't believe he won a Golden Globe because he just sucks.
 
Dumbo (2019) - I knew it would be bad. There's no real way to adapt the animated feature. The nonsensical garbage they came up with completely took the focus off of the freaking elephant, he really seemed like a total afterthought. Tim Burton is about 8 movies away from having lost his touch now, maybe 10 idk.

A Star Is Born (2018) - The chemistry was great and the whirlwind romance was believable. If it weren't for the half dozen or so instances where Gaga's acting totally took me out of the scene I would've thought this was a really good movie. It was still a beautiful and tragic love story but that had a lot more to do with Bradley Cooper's stellar work both in front of and behind the camera.

A Simple Favor - Thinks it's more clever than it really is. I generally like Anna Kendrick in most things so that helped and Blake Lively is gorgeous (Ryan Reynolds lives a charmed life) but I didn't buy her as a conniving badass. Tone is this movie was all over the place, needed to figure out if it was a comedy or a thriller. It never did, which undercut both attempts.

Shazam - This was a fun movie. I get the beef @nwhoopfan but besides the creature feature bits I thought the light hearted tone worked well when you consider our heroes are really just children. I liked the nods to the greater DCEU as well. I hope a sequel gets a green light.
 
Mano said:
This was a fun movie. I get the beef @nwhoopfan but besides the creature feature bits I thought the light hearted tone worked well when you consider our heroes are really just children.
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Heh. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon. My opinion has differed from the masses on several of the superhero flicks. I don't prefer grimdark but when they drift towards too lighthearted it kind of loses me. Thor: Ragnarok, Spiderman: Homecoming (haven't seen the latest one yet). I did enjoy Aquaman though.
 
"The Rewrite" is familiar territory for Hugh Grant. It's kind of like "Music and Lyrics" except this time he's a movie scriptwriter rather than a musician. Same washed up has been. His agent gets him a temporary gig teaching at Binghamton in upstate NY. He intends to totally half-a** it, but lo and behold he starts to connect with his students and actually care about teaching them. Fairly entertaining. Marisa Tomei is charming as usual. Some other strong supporting cast like J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney.

"Summer Night" is like many movies that came before it. A group of young people looking to entertain themselves on a weekend night. Not really a plot per se. It either stands up or falls down depending on if you enjoy the characters. I enjoyed it. No big names in it but a number of recognizable actresses/actors, some I wasn't familiar with. It calls for a fair bit of suspending disbelief though--a very small rural town somehow spawned 3 credible bands, and almost everyone is very attractive. Amazing! I have to say--how is Victoria Justice not a bigger star? I mean she was a kid star on Nickelodeon. I think she's a decent actress, she's gorgeous...don't know what happened (although apparently there was some kind of non-existent feud w/ Ariana Grande, but the rumor mill just won't let it go). Also I might not ever get to watch "Anna and the Apocalypse" (released in theaters during the holiday season, not due on DVD until October?...really?), but the star from that--Ella Hunt--was in this and I am looking forward to seeing more of her.
 
Just saw "The Whales of August". If you want to see a bunch of old time actors towards the end of their acting careers do their thing, this isn't bad at all. This film stars Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Vincent Price, Ann Sothern, and Harry Carey Jr (a favorite of ours from a bunch of classic westerns). In fact, it was the last film for both Gish and Southern Some fine acting goes on in this film, especially by Gish. Also enjoyed Carey's Maine accent (I half expected him to break into some "Bert and I" routines, or possibly say something like "you can't get there from here".) On the other hand, there is virtually no plot and nothing really happens, and for some movies I can be fine with that. For me a little plot would have helped improve things. Still, this movie is watchable with all the fine acting on display, and for the nostalgia trip of everyone involved.
 
8893 said:
Just saw this this afternoon. I am more than willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of a good movie but I’m kind of pissed.

I get how a worldwide electrical event could have eliminated certain things, and I get how only a few people might not have been affected—guessing it was because he was in the air and not touching anything during the outage. I’m a little less clear on how physical objects that existed could have been removed, but I would have let that go. My issue is that I was expecting at least some explanation of the logic behind what was actually eliminated, which, by our count was: Beatles, Oasis, cigarettes, Coca-Cola and Harry Potter. And if we follow the logic that the Beatles never existing means John Lennon was still alive, doesn’t it follow that if Oasis never existed, Jack never plays “Wonderwall” to enchant Ellie?

How do you hint at the melody to “Something” during the Ellie and Jack scenes during the last hour and never feature or play the song?

Bonus points to Mrs. 8893 for noticing that the Brits were referring to miles, not kilometers.

Nonetheless, a decent watch. Just wouldn’t rush to see it in the theater.
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Good catch on the bolded part of the spoiler. However, your to your wife's point, the imperial measurement system never completely went away regarding measuring distance. Road signs still use miles and mph.

As far as "Something", that was the joke I was referring to as being in the trailer, but not in the movie. I don't understand how/why they left that out, it looked like a great scene and I was looking forward to it.
 
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Not a recent movie but Love and Mercy, which is about Brian Wilson is a pretty good movie. Paul Dano is a freaking genius.
 
nwhoopfan said:
Heh. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon. My opinion has differed from the masses on several of the superhero flicks. I don't prefer grimdark but when they drift towards too lighthearted it kind of loses me. Thor: Ragnarok, Spiderman: Homecoming (haven't seen the latest one yet). I did enjoy Aquaman though.
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I think it depends on the character. Batman, Punsiher, and daredevil should all be pretty dark.

Superman and spidey less so (Peter Parker gets more darkness than spidey lol).

Etc

Now when they do a thanos movie, that should be an all time classic. Earths greatest hero deserves nothing less.
 
ZooCougar said:
Not a recent movie but Love and Mercy, which is about Brian Wilson is a pretty good movie. Paul Dano is a freaking genius.
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I saw Love & Mercy once about 3+ years ago. I thought it was terrific.
 
So went to see “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” last night.

I have mixed feelings on this one. It’s clear 3-4 notches above anything else I have seen lately. But unlike many of Tarantino’s best movies, this one didn’t seem to tie it all together.

Pitt and DiCaprio do well together, lots of good one liners. There are few other things that are cool that aren’t quite spoilers but were nice surprises like...


Did the sequence with Cliff fighting Bruce Lee actually happen or was that just Cliff’s daydream when he was on the roof. I’m thinking daydream.

Otherwise if you are fan then you should go see it, the cinematography is beautiful. It’s so much better than the latest garbage from Pixar or even a Marvel flick, which I usually like.

I say it’s better than Jackie Brown, Django and the Hateful Eight but nearly as good as The Inglorious Basterds.
 
ZooCougar said:
So went to see “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” last night.

I have mixed feelings on this one. It’s clear 3-4 notches above anything else I have seen lately. But unlike many of Tarantino’s best movies, this one didn’t seem to tie it all together.

Pitt and DiCaprio do well together, lots of good one liners. There are few other things that are cool that aren’t quite spoilers but were nice surprises like...


Did the sequence with Cliff fighting Bruce Lee actually happen or was that just Cliff’s daydream when he was on the roof. I’m thinking daydream.

Otherwise if you are fan then you should go see it, the cinematography is beautiful. It’s so much better than the latest garbage from Pixar or even a Marvel flick, which I usually like.

I say it’s better than Jackie Brown, Django and the Hateful Eight but nearly as good as The Inglorious Basterds.
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A lot of feminists are mad that the movie had scenes in it that didn’t revolve around Margot Robbie.
 
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Mano said:
Captain Marvel - Boring. Truly. I wanted to like it but found Brie Larson's performance lacking much of any charm or even intensity (which seemed what she was going for, albeit the quiet kind). Samuel L. did his best to keep me engaged and it was a little fun seeing Nick Fury's beginnings I guess. The cat was dumb and seemed mostly like a deus ex machina device. The central mystery was waaay too easy to call and pretty uninspired. I liked Ben Mendelsohn's character and performance for the most part but the garbled accent he was going for made it a bit hard to understand what he was saying. Hoping for better out of the character in Endgame. @Deadrody @traitor71 curious if you guys ever bothered after coming out so strongly against it.
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I saw it, but it wasn't particularly memorable and the whole "super powerful" deus ex machina effect the character had on Endgame was dumb. It was interesting to see the anti-hype didn't really materialize. Brie Larson was the source of much of that, and her performances on the press tour were absolutely cringe-worthy.
 
nwhoopfan said:
Heh. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon. My opinion has differed from the masses on several of the superhero flicks. I don't prefer grimdark but when they drift towards too lighthearted it kind of loses me. Thor: Ragnarok, Spiderman: Homecoming (haven't seen the latest one yet). I did enjoy Aquaman though.
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It was ok, I guess. Kinda bashing you over the head with the whole orphan, group home, pseudo family storyline. Yeah, we get it. Kinda scatter brained plot
 
ZooCougar said:
Did the sequence with Cliff fighting Bruce Lee actually happen or was that just Cliff’s daydream when he was on the roof. I’m thinking daydream.
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I'm pretty sure it had actually happened in the past and that's the reason why it was a complete non-starter for him to be a stunt guy on that current project since his past with Kurt Russell/wife.
 
The Lion King - Basically a shot for shot remake using CGI that had about 15% of the charm and character of the original. The kids liked it well enough, I was mostly bored.

UglyDolls - Godawful.

Long Shot - I liked this one more than I thought I would. Was genuinely funny if completely implausible.

Alita: Battle Angel - The action was enjoyable but the technology that brought to life Alita was distracting. Took me out of the movie repeatedly. The action scenes were well down throughout but the minute things slowed down it got pretty cheesy. The love interest was terribly cast.
 
The new "Hellboy" was meh. Very gory though if you're into that. Numerous dismemberments. I like Ron Perlman as the title character better than David Harbour. There are several teasers at the end, it seems as though they are planning a sequel.
 
nwhoopfan said:
The new "Hellboy" was meh. Very gory though if you're into that. Numerous dismemberments. I like Ron Perlman as the title character better than David Harbour. There are several teasers at the end, it seems as though they are planning a sequel.
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Yes. Very meh.
 
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