Recently Watched Movies 2022 | Page 29 | The Boneyard

Recently Watched Movies 2022

Avatar. With the new one now, I wanted to rewatch this. Plus, wife has Covid some I'm staying away and needed something to watch. This is certainly a visual and technical achievement. As a movie, it's good, not great. It's a bit of a cliche, with the evil corporation mining a pristine world, and being willing to kill the natives. At least there were scientists who wanted to study and learn about them. The way the main character becomes one with the Navi and is accepted was nice. In hindsight, one of the most fascinating things is that the people, animals and plants employ something that looks like fiber optic cable, and allows communication and data transfer. Memories stored in trees. The whole planet is a sentient database of sorts. It appears to be a technological version of some Native American beliefs, and that's quite interesting. Overall, it's good, if a bit too long.
 
HuskyHawk said:
Spirited. Apple+. Stars Ryan Reynolds’s and Will Ferrell. This is a Christmas movie that takes a unique spin on the Dickens ”A Christmas Carol” story. It’s pretty funny and has a solid plot and storyline. It’s also a musical, and yes, both stars sing some tunes. The ghosts of past. present and future do their thing with a new target every year. This year they take aim on Reynolds’s character and that backfires in some ways. It’s clever, fun and has a good message. Recommended.
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I liked this a lot. Definitely a good re-making and modernizing of A Christmas Carol, which A Christmas Carol definitely needed.
 
The Banshees of Inisherin. HBOMax. My family loves Ireland so we were looking forward to this. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson star, the pair that was so good in In Bruges. This is set on an island off the west coast of Ireland, in 1923. The Irish Civil War is ongoing, but doesn't touch the island. Locations are stunning, I've been to some of them and recognized the spots. The acting here is superb from both leads and the supporting cast. I'm not going to talk about the plot much, but Farrell and Gleeson are friends and then Gleeson decides otherwise. The rest flows from that, and from the isolation inherent in living on a small island with few people and no diversions except conversation and the pub. There are messages here, about what kind of life is of lasting value, relationships, kindness and a dark, inner madness that can take many forms. So critics love this film, it's certain to be nominated for best picture and some (deserved) acting awards. I didn't like it. The comedic moments are too sparse and the ending was unsatisfying. Mostly I didn't like it because they could have explored these topics in an uplifting way, and instead this is bleak.
 
21. This is the movie based on the book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich. It’s based on a true story of the MIT blackjack team that counted cards and made a lot of money. The book is better. Stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Lawrence Fishburne and Kate Bosworth. It simplifies the story somewhat. Card counting, with a sophisticated system to avoid detection. The real story had several big players, including an Asian kid who could better pretend to be a wealthy foreigner who gets lucky. Bosworth is cute and the whole thing is a lot of fun. Nobody plays a creepy A - hole quite like Kevin Spacey. Lots of fun here. Read the book first, but the movie is good too.
 
"About Fate" is a fairly cliched rom com, but Emma Roberts and Thomas Mann were charming enough to pull it off. Bit parts for Britt Robertson, Madelaine Petsc;h, Cheryl Hines.
 
Since @HuskyHawk is bringing up some older movies, I watched Elf for the very first time on Friday. I've never been a big Will Ferrell fan, but honestly, why is this movie popular? It's stupid and out and out just sucks.
 
storrsroars said:
Since @HuskyHawk is bringing up some older movies, I watched Elf for the very first time on Friday. I've never been a big Will Ferrell fan, but honestly, why is this movie popular? It's stupid and out and out just sucks.
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Same. It's not good. Will Ferrell is often painfully too much in most of his movies (Zoolander is where it works best), but Elf is just dumb.

He's toned down in Spirited, and is pretty good in that.
 
HuskyHawk said:
Same. It's not good. Will Ferrell is often painfully too much in most of his movies (Zoolander is where it works best), but Elf is just dumb.

He's toned down in Spirited, and is pretty good in that.
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I am generally not a fan of Will Ferrell movies, but there is one movie that he stars in that my wife and I quite enjoy. That would be "Stranger than Fiction".
 
Will Ferrell is very hit and miss for me. A couple others that haven't been mentioned that work for me are Semi Pro and Old School.
 
Palatine said:
The Last Duel. 2021.

14th century France. The friendship between a Knight (Damon) and a squire (Adam Driver) unravels as their fortunes head in different directions until they ultimately fight to the death in a well attended duel. The film is long, slow, tedious and dull. Ridley Scott usually delivers better. I am a fan of set pieces that transport us to a different time. Not this one. One Star.
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Totally agree. I wanted to love this - and I really really really struggled to stay awake.
 
Echo in the Canyon (2018)

Centered around Jakob Dylan and his producing of a concert celebrating the music from the 60s that came out of LA's Laurel Canyon neighborhood, this documentary bounces from conversations of Dylan and Canyon's venerable musicians, him in the studio playing their music and on stage with his contemporaries.

If you have any interest in the LA-based folk-rock music of the 60s, or music in general, then I highly recommend this. Very enjoyable 80 minutes.
 
A Christmas Story Christmas. HBOMax. Love the original, had misgivings about the sequel. After a slow start they pulled it out and this was sweet, funny and enjoyable. Not the classic the original is, but it works well enough. It's now 1973 and Ralph Parker is a writer in Chicago. He goes home with his wife (Erinn Hayes...way out of his league) and two kids to his old house on Cleveland Street. He's struggling to get a book deal and needs to give his family a memorable Christmas, so he's struggling to live up to his old man on that front. The gang's all here. Schwartz, Flick, the Bumpuses next door, their hounds, and more. So there's nostalgia involved for sure. Also, for someone my age (56) Ralph's youngest kid is probably close to my age, so again, some nostalgia for Christmas in the early 70s. It's a tribute to the old man, but also to what really makes special Christmas memories. The film is dedicated to Darren McGavin.
 
If These Walls Could Sing (2022)

This is a documentary on the Abbey Road studio. Obviously, there’s a lot of Beatles stuff, but there are a lot of other interesting tidbits. For example, Elton John was a studio musician and plays the piano on The Hollies He’s Not Heavy He’s My Brother. Jimmy Page was one as well, and plays the guitar for the Goldfinger opening theme. Other movie themes recorded there include the first Indiana Jones and Return of the Jedi.

Very interesting, worth a watch.
 
"Glass Onion" (Knives Out sequel) is streaming on Netflix now. Madcap romp, entertaining ride. Ensemble cast that look like they had a lot of fun making this.
 
’Spirited’ on Apple TV+.

It was fantastic. Pairing Will Ferrell with Ryan Reynolds in a musical send-up of ‘A Christmas Caro’, where they perform duets no less, was truly inspired thinking.

Reynolds is, IMO, low key one of the best working actors out there.
 
‘Amsterdam’. I thought this was well done with a great ensemble cast led by Christian Bale and John David Washington (Denzel’s son). Eliptical plot movement and heavily dialogue driven a la some of Tarantino’s stuff, so if you like that writing style you’ll like this flick.
 
nwhoopfan said:
"Glass Onion" (Knives Out sequel) is streaming on Netflix now. Madcap romp, entertaining ride. Ensemble cast that look like they had a lot of fun making this.
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Watched last night. It’s quite good. Loads of fun and some good performances from a big cast. Really solid updated take on the murder mystery genre.
 
Watched Insomnia (2002) with Pacino, Robin Williams and Hillary Swank for the first time. Not sure how I had missed this for so long. Obviously a great cast and a really solid movie overall.
 
CL82 said:
I just watched Top Gun Maverick. Undisputably, this is a good movie hitting every point it needs to. It was really enjoyable.

My only question is would it make far more sense to send cruise missiles in to take out the target we know they’re faster than -18s and they’re specifically designed to come in ground hugging.. You wouldn’t need to send just two and make everything perfect you could just keep on flying them until you blew the thing up. But if you weren’t going to do that why not use stealth bombers? But if you couldn’t do that, wouldn’t you just run a series of sortees taking out the SAMS first and then going in and bomb the site? it just seemed like they took it the mission that had the least opportunity to succeed and went with that.
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We just watched this today. Excellent movie. I don't know about the military strategies but yeah, it seems like we have plenty of firepower to handle this mission from 30k feet.

Otherwise the movie was good. Lots of references to the original. I would have preferred someone else be the hero because I gotta believe our best of the best are better at flying and handling the g's than a 60 year old, no disprespect. Cruise is amazing for a 60 year old. We kept waiting to figure out the connection between Penny and Maverick and I had to google it after the movie. Maverick was very Ethan Hunt-like.
 
Last Christmas, 2021, Hulu - Movie is decent although the plot is predictable. The acting is fine, but if Henry Golding and Emilia Clarke are not huge stars for the next 10+ years, their agents should be run out of the industry. These two are good (not great) actors, but they are just stars. There is something so interesting and appealing about them that make them very watchable, even in a mediocre film like this one.
 
It’s a tradition in our household every New Year’s Eve to watch “The Apartment”. Billy Wilders masterpiece still rings true about the good old USA after 60+ years.

As for the best new flick in 2022, I’d have to go with “The Power of the Dog”. Really got shafted at the Oscars.
 
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