Recently Watched Movies 2023

[HuskyHawk]

Interesting. The previews made the movie look like a joke.

Previews tend to focus on the wrong things. It’s a good movie. Not amazing, but good

 

[Dove]

Joyeux Noel (2005) - Pretty good movie about two opposing forces during World War I trench battles. On Christmas Eve they call a truce and end up socializing with each other over a few days. When the leadership finds out, the leaders and their men get reassigned to other theatres.

Worth a watch.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Wonka. Stars Timothee Chalamet with a notable appearance by Hugh Grant. This is the origin story of Willy Wonka. If you love the ordinal Gene Wilder version you’ll enjoy this. Chalamet is quite good, with a little dancing and he sings a few songs. Wonka sets out to make it in the very competitive chocolate world. He end up swindled and in a work house, with some interesting characters including a young girl. With brilliance, persistence and a little Wonka magic he presents a threat to Slugworth and the chocolate establishment. It’s fun and leaves you smiling. Very good looking film too. They brilliantly work in Pure Imagination near the end.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Joyeux Noel (2005) - Pretty good movie about two opposing forces during World War I trench battles. On Christmas Eve they call a truce and end up socializing with each other over a few days. When the leadership finds out, the leaders and their men get reassigned to other theatres.

Worth a watch.

We watched it again Christmas Eve. It’s an embellishment of the real events that occurred up and down the front on that Christmas Eve during WWi. Probably the stupidest war of all time. Diane Kruger is beautiful beyond words. Quite good.

 

[Deepster]

Wonka. Stars Timothee Chalamet with a notable appearance by Hugh Grant. This is the origin story of Willy Wonka. If you love the ordinal Gene Wilder version you’ll enjoy this. Chalamet is quite good, with a little dancing and he sings a few songs. Wonka sets out to make it in the very competitive chocolate world. He end up swindled and in a work house, with some interesting characters including a young girl. With brilliance, persistence and a little Wonka magic he presents a threat to Slugworth and the chocolate establishment. It’s fun and leaves you smiling. Very good looking film too. They brilliantly work in Pure Imagination near the end.

Is it truly the origin story? The Roald Dahl book has some pretty unflattering pieces of Wonkas origin. Like the Oompa Loompas were not orange. They were originally African pygmies he lured to work in his factory paying them in chocolate.

 

[Dove]

Talk To Me (2022) - Pretty creepy Australian horror flick. Well acted by all. Only the father of the main chapter was poorly used.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Had a theme the last 2 nights. Watched "The Boys in the Boat" in the theater yesterday, tonight streamed "Race" on Netlfix. The culmination of both stories is the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Otherwise very different, but both excellent sports movies. The first is about the 8 man crew team that hailed from U. of Washington, the second about Jessie Owens.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Is it truly the origin story? The Roald Dahl book has some pretty unflattering pieces of Wonkas origin. Like the Oompa Loompas were not orange. They were originally African pygmies he lured to work in his factory paying them in chocolate.

Origin Story related to the first movie.

 

[storrsroars]

I read the reviews for The Retirement Plan (Hulu) before decided to watch it. Reviews were pretty average, citing it was neither particularly bad nor particularly good, but nobody regretted spending the time to watch it. It was simply fairly formulaic.

Having just watched it, I'm not gonna say it was particularly good, but it was entertaining. Nic Cage does Nic Cage things (and I credit the actress who played his granddaughter for keeping a straight face in their initial scenes together). Ron Perlman is good as a baddie with a soft side and his scenes with the granddaughter are among the best in the film. Otherwise, it's a fairly standard retired operative forced back into action to protect his family storyline, but it's Nic Cage, so it's not really "standard".

 

[Deepster]

Origin Story related to the first movie.

The Wilder or Depp "first" movie? Sorry for being a Roald Dahl nerd.

 

[HuskyHawk]

The Wilder or Depp "first" movie? Sorry for being a Roald Dahl nerd.

Wilder. That was 1971. Johnny Depp was 8.

 

[Palatine]

Blonde - 2023 Another Marilyn Monroe bio-pic. Just looking at Ana de Armas for two hours could make a good movie, in this one she is naked for half the time. Yet somehow this is an awful film. Slow with long lingering shots of nothing. It's a one note depressing bunch of drivel. Armas spends most of the film crying. Bobby Cannavale makes it worse as a terribly miscast Joe DiMaggio. He plays Joltin' Joe as a clueless brute. Joe was elegant and stylish, known as a quiet man who lived with grace and class. It's a big miss.

The one bright spot in the film is Adrien Brody's portrayal of Authur Miller. It is understated and pitch perfect. It gives a perfect character for Armas to react to. It is the only time in the film where the Monroe character reveals real depth and seem like an actual human being. It's not enough -- one star trending toward half a star.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Watched on New Year’s Eve. So last of 2023. Oppenheimer. Long but you really don’t feel it. The cast is simply astonishing. Cillian Murphy has the title role, Robert Downey Jr is superb and there are many others. This tells a story I suspect most of us know parts of, but the details really paint a picture. Nolan shows he’s probably the best director of this era, using his time shifting approach flawlessly in this one. He switches color palettes and even black and white so you can always tell what is happening when. Just a tremendous film that should win best picture and director and garner actor nominations too.

 

[Kolumbo]

I was just a witness to the prosecution but I think I may need to wait for the new thread.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Well I'll keep using this til the new thread is up. Netflix gave me 3 free months of streaming. It's about to run out. I'll probably cancel my subscription, there's just about nothing new coming out in January that looks interesting. So just trying to squeeze a little bit more out of it, decided what the heck I'll try Meg 2. Yeah, it was really dumb. Kinda entertaining I guess.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Well I'll keep using this til the new thread is up. Netflix gave me 3 free months of streaming. It's about to run out. I'll probably cancel my subscription, there's just about nothing new coming out in January that looks interesting. So just trying to squeeze a little bit more out of it, decided what the heck I'll try Meg 2. Yeah, it was really dumb. Kinda entertaining I guess.

My biggest take away from this was "who is Melissanthi Mahut and why have I never heard of her before?" I kept thinking she reminded me of someone else, but it took me a minute to figure it out. Asia Argento, Dario's daughter. Look at some pics, I think I got that one.

 

[HuskyHawk]

My biggest take away from this was "who is Melissanthi Mahut and why have I never heard of her before?" I kept thinking she reminded me of someone else, but it took me a minute to figure it out. Asia Argento, Dario's daughter. Look at some pics, I think I got that one.

She seems to mostly be a voice actress. Has been in a lot of video games.

 

[storrsroars]

Asia Argento, Dario's daughter. Look at some pics, I think I got that one.

You can tell a real movie buff from a casual when they describe Asia Argento as "Dario's daughter", instead of the woman who triggered Anthony Bourdain's suicide.

 

[nwhoopfan]

She seems to mostly be a voice actress. Has been in a lot of video games.

I looked her up on imdb. She was in that Netflix movie "Eurovision" with Will Ferrell. I started that, but didn't make it til the end. Probably didn't get far enough to see her in it.

 

[nwhoopfan]

You can tell a real movie buff from a casual when they describe Asia Argento as "Dario's daughter", instead of the woman who triggered Anthony Bourdain's suicide.

Whoa, I didn't even know about that.