Recently Watched Movies 2024 | Page 7 | The Boneyard

Recently Watched Movies 2024

I finally broke down and watched Dune (2021) last night. Sci-Fantasy is not my thing, but I figured with the new one coming out, I ought to at least be able to nominally participate in conversation about the thing. I went in already jaded as I have little use for actors who don't know how to spell Timothy, or one-named actresses. Pretentious A.F. But I gave it a go. From what I understand from the little bit of research I did on it, it's supposed to be more about humanity and civilization than technological wizardry. I can't say I came away with that as the main point of the exercise. After a slow start, it did hold my interest, and probably enough to dive into the 2nd one when it hits streaming, but it didn't "wow" me.
 
Watched “Spaceman“ with Adam Sandler on Netflix. All I’ll say is it was a slog. Not terrible, just a bit slow.
 
HuskyHawk said:
Napoleon. Joaquin Phoenix looking older and more worn than he is as the Corsican. Vanessa Kirby is enchanting and stunning as Josephine Bonapart. The scenery is nice. The battle scenes well orchestrated. It’s a personal look at the man who fought many wars that probably shouldn’t have been fought and the hubris that drive him to it. He comes across as someone who needed to get his kicked as a younger man. It’s not a bad film, but it’s boring in stretches and has no real story arc.
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There is no living director that does big battle scenes as well as Ridley Scott, and the Austerlitz scene was incredible. But I agree that there was no story arc. Kirby is very distinctive looking, but I am not sure she was that great in the role. Josephine treated him like crap, and the Emperor of Europe stayed with her because...reasons? It is also unclear why they maintained a correspondence after their divorce because it seemed like they couldn't stand each other.

My feeling is if a studio is going to do an epic, go all in. Make a 3 and a half hour movie. Otherwise, we don't get to know the peripheral characters, many of whom are important in the plot. Talleyrand is one of the most interesting and important people of that era, and other than him acting like a deutch in a few scenes, I doubt many of those who watched the movie have any idea which character he was. The Czar of Russia and Emperor of Austria were very unique people whose reaction to Napoleon changed history, and they got almost no screen time.
 
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Dune 2. At the cinema. It was quite good. I was watching and knew what was coming. I thought, did I somehow see a sneak preview? No, I forgot I read the book. So they tracked pretty closely with the book. Some deviations but not significant. Could it have been 15 minutes shorter? Yes. I don't have many complaints but the transformation of Paul to the Lisan al Gaib, is a bit rushed. It's slower in the book. They focus on him resisting what he knows and then he's all in and it happens at breakneck speed. Doesn't feel quite right. Still a really well done film and adaptation.
 
HuskyHawk said:
Napoleon. Joaquin Phoenix looking older and more worn than he is as the Corsican. Vanessa Kirby is enchanting and stunning as Josephine Bonapart. The scenery is nice. The battle scenes well orchestrated. It’s a personal look at the man who fought many wars that probably shouldn’t have been fought and the hubris that drive him to it. He comes across as someone who needed to get his kicked as a younger man. It’s not a bad film, but it’s boring in stretches and has no real story arc.
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I think it was a bad movie. Austerlitz wasn’t even remotely historically accurate. It was just Ridley Scott providing a wild interpretation of Napoleon with a bunch of disconnected events from his life.

You could pretty much tell that Phoenix was mailing it in. He even said it as much in the interviews. He didn’t know how to play the role.
 
ZooCougar said:
I think it was a bad movie. Austerlitz wasn’t even remotely historically accurate. It was just Ridley Scott providing a wild interpretation of Napoleon with a bunch of disconnected events from his life.

You could pretty much tell that Phoenix was mailing it in. He even said it as much in the interviews. He didn’t know how to play the role.
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I didn't realize that battle was a great victory for the Austrians and Russians. Thank you for clearing that up.

If you are referring to the lake disaster, the events are disputed. There were reports of the French doing an analysis of the events of the battle immediately afterward that showed light casualties from drowning, although Napoleon had reason to downplay the magnitude of Allied casualties at the time since he was trying to make peace with Austria and Russia and slaughtering retreating troops during an era that still had the residual cultural norms of chivalry and where quarter to defeated foes was expected, would not play well across Europe. Czar Alexander himself claims to have witnessed 20,000 Russians die on some frozen body of water. While that number is likely wildly overstated, it is not likely the Czar would want to deliberately exaggerate what was a crushing and humiliating defeat for him. Some meaningful number of Russians drowned trying to escape from that battle.

The fact that Ridley Scott did not cover every possible aspect of the battle in a 10 minutes scene also does not make the scene not "remotely historically accurate". Thousands of Austrians getting lost in the fog until they were surrounded and had to surrender does not result in great movie making, even though that was a significant part of the Allied casualties.
 
Well I was correct about "Ricky Stanicky"--it was both incredibly dumb, but pretty funny too. John Cena just goes all in for his role. Interesting that as an action star he's kinda meh, but he shines in comedy. I guess there's a fair bit of comedy with the roles wrestlers take on for their promos and developing their personas. Also stars Zac Efron, some nobodies, William H. Macy, and a cameo by Jeff Ross. Oh yeah, and Anja Savcic from Loudermilk. It's one of those stories where layers of lies get built upon more lies, that kind of premise I usually find frustrating.
 
HuskyHawk said:
This is what I considered watching and decided on X2 instead. Amber Heard will undoubtedly look good at least. I do generally like Momoa.
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I’m about ready for the Jason Momoa era to go away.
 
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nelsonmuntz said:
I didn't realize that battle was a great victory for the Austrians and Russians. Thank you for clearing that up.

If you are referring to the lake disaster, the events are disputed. There were reports of the French doing an analysis of the events of the battle immediately afterward that showed light casualties from drowning, although Napoleon had reason to downplay the magnitude of Allied casualties at the time since he was trying to make peace with Austria and Russia and slaughtering retreating troops during an era that still had the residual cultural norms of chivalry and where quarter to defeated foes was expected, would not play well across Europe. Czar Alexander himself claims to have witnessed 20,000 Russians die on some frozen body of water. While that number is likely wildly overstated, it is not likely the Czar would want to deliberately exaggerate what was a crushing and humiliating defeat for him. Some meaningful number of Russians drowned trying to escape from that battle.

The fact that Ridley Scott did not cover every possible aspect of the battle in a 10 minutes scene also does not make the scene not "remotely historically accurate". Thousands of Austrians getting lost in the fog until they were surrounded and had to surrender does not result in great movie making, even though that was a significant part of the Allied casualties.
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Nelson….

It depicts the ENTIRE battle taking place on a frozen lake.

In truth there likely wasn’t even a frozen lake. And it missed the entire reason why the Battle of Austerlitz was so amazing

Napoleon and Wellington never met in real life

Napoleon never fired on the pyramids

The whole move is a BS sandwich and it received brutal reviews.
 
Deepster said:
You’re gonna need to sell it a little better than that.
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It’s a post apocalyptic series. Momoa actually has to act instead of playing a bro.

Humanity has basically gone blind and has plunged into a dark age. The few people who are sighted are considered abominations.

It’s sort of like Game of Thrones, Mad Max, and the Postman all rolled together. And one of the interesting aspects is how humans adapted to life without sight.

It has some really good actors like Dave Bautista and Christian Camargo and was done well on what I bet was a smaller budget.

It’s a much better show that crap like Invasion and the poorly executed but improving Foundation.
 
ZooCougar said:
It’s a post apocalyptic series. Momoa actually has to act instead of playing a bro.

Humanity has basically gone blind and has plunged into a dark age. The few people who are sighted are considered abominations.

It’s sort of like Game of Thrones, Mad Max, and the Postman all rolled together. And one of the interesting aspects is how humans adapted to life without sight.

It has some really good actors like Dave Bautista and Christian Camargo and was done well on what I bet was a smaller budget.

It’s a much better show that crap like Invasion and the poorly executed but improving Foundation.
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Exactly. I went in with low expectations and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Momoa is solid. Tom Mison and Silvia Hoeks are very good. The tall kid, Archie Madekwe is in freaking everything now. He's done very well with the lead in Gran Turismo and a big role in Saltburn. TV show, not a movie.
 
So I said in my last post about Dune that sci-fantasy is not my thing. But sci-fantasy could be, lol.

I'm an hour into Poor Things (Hulu). It's exhausting to watch, but not for the usual reasons. There is so much going on and so much unexplained - like how people are put off by Willem DeFoe's alarmingly disfigured face, but nobody who visits his home comments on the barking chicken with a dog's head or the giant bubbles DeFoe belches because he can't digest food properly - it's just too much sensory overload, and that's not even counting the numerous coitus scenes and the ethical dilemma of knowing that Mark Ruffalo is banging someone with the mental capacity and dialogue of a 5-year old. On top of that, there's the impeccable costuming, interesting and weird camera work, and overall terrific moviemaking taking place.

It is truly unlike anything I've ever seen regarding the plot, possibly because it's somewhat hard to believe the whole thing seems so scandalous that I'm surprised this film even got made, let alone attract an A-list cast. Based on reviews, I'm fairly sure I know what the point is supposed to be, and I suppose it will become clear in the second hour-plus, but I had to take a break as it was all too much, albeit in delightfully bizarre ways.
 
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storrsroars said:
So I said in my last post about Dune that sci-fantasy is not my thing. But sci-fantasy could be, lol.

I'm an hour into Poor Things (Hulu). It's exhausting to watch, but not for the usual reasons. There is so much going on and so much unexplained - like how people are put off by Willem DeFoe's alarmingly disfigured face, but nobody who visits his home comments on the barking chicken with a dog's head or the giant bubbles DeFoe belches because he can't digest food properly - it's just too much sensory overload, and that's not even counting the numerous coitus scenes and the ethical dilemma of knowing that Mark Ruffalo is banging someone with the mental capacity and dialogue of a 5-year old. On top of that, there's the impeccable costuming, interesting and weird camera work, and overall terrific moviemaking taking place.

It is truly unlike anything I've ever seen regarding the plot, possibly because it's somewhat hard to believe the whole thing seems so scandalous that I'm surprised this film even got made, let alone attract an A-list cast. Based on reviews, I'm fairly sure I know what the point is supposed to be, and I suppose it will become clear in the second hour-plus, but I had to take a break as it was all too much, albeit in delightfully bizarre ways.
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I was interested in this when I first saw trailers. I thought she was from a different era and when she was re-animated there would be culture shock from being out of her time. I didn't realize it was a freshly dead corpse, with a newborn baby's brain implanted. I read A LOT of user reviews and reactions to this movie, and eventually talked myself out of it. The whole pedo thing is just way too creepy, I'm not watching that. I can't believe this didn't generate more (or any?) controversy. Critics loved it, audience scores on imdb and Rotten Tomatoes are high, but user reviews are extremely mixed, it's a love it or hate it kind of endeavor it would appear.
 
I'm all over the place on what I view, but I sometimes enjoy small budget, obscure indies that are character driven. Of course some like that aren't compelling, but I find some gems from time to time. I think I found one tonight. "Unconformity" is on Amazon Prime. It's about a geology grad student who is nearing the completion of her program. She's has some set backs, getting jerked around by academia. Against her advisor's wishes, she sets out to do some field work in the Nevada desert. She's also a rock climbing enthusiast so she does some bouldering in between walking around and looking at rocks. She comes into the sphere of a young guy trying to help keep his dad's cattle ranch afloat. He's played by Jack Mulhern, who I've seen a few times, I've always enjoyed him so far. The lead actress is Alex Oliver, never heard of her before. She reminds me somewhat of Brit Marling, which is definitely not a bad thing. Anyway it's a quiet movie, not a lot happens, but it kept me interested throughout.
 
ZooCougar said:
Nelson….

It depicts the ENTIRE battle taking place on a frozen lake.

In truth there likely wasn’t even a frozen lake. And it missed the entire reason why the Battle of Austerlitz was so amazing

Napoleon and Wellington never met in real life

Napoleon never fired on the pyramids

The whole move is a BS sandwich and it received brutal reviews.
Expand ...

You are right. Scott should have gotten 160,000 extras and filmed every skirmish of Austerlitz exactly as it happened to make it completely authentic. That would have made sense.

The Austrians and Russians ran right into a trap. The Czar of Russia, who was at the battle, attested to the Satschen Lake catastrophe. Or you can believe Napoleon's weird claim that he drained a lake in the middle of winter right after a battle (with early 19th century technology, while in a war zone) to see how many dead Russians were at the bottom. From a propaganda standpoint, Napoleon made every effort to make it seem like he was merciful in his victory, when in reality thousands were killed fleeing when the Allied army collapsed. Breaking up ice that Russians were trying to flee across probably seemed like fun in the moment, but it was not going to play well in political circles when Napoleon was trying to end fighting in Europe. Napoleon actually claimed to be merciful when he accepted Emperor Francis' surrender so not appearing to be a bloodthirsty mass murderer was important to him.

Napoleon and Wellington did not meet, but it did not make sense to introduce more characters at that point in the movie, and it was not a big deal.

The entire Egypt invasion could have been skipped. It didn't add to the story and it is a weird side note to the historical record that doesn't make sense there either.

I didn't think the movie was that good either. I just disagree with your characterization of the movie being a BS sandwich and wanted to point out that you are wrong on the Battle of Austerlitz. Just like you are wrong on Shogun. You are not very good with this history stuff, are you?
 
nwhoopfan said:
I was interested in this when I first saw trailers. I thought she was from a different era and when she was re-animated there would be culture shock from being out of her time. I didn't realize it was a freshly dead corpse, with a newborn baby's brain implanted. I read A LOT of user reviews and reactions to this movie, and eventually talked myself out of it. The whole pedo thing is just way too creepy, I'm not watching that. I can't believe this didn't generate more (or any?) controversy. Critics loved it, audience scores on imdb and Rotten Tomatoes are high, but user reviews are extremely mixed, it's a love it or hate it kind of endeavor it would appear.
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I get the reticence. I don't know how to best describe the sex parts, but as she was in turbo-driven sexual awakening mode and a more than willing participant, it just didn't seem as bad as it sounds, especially when played as comedy. That said, at some point there was just too much of it. I personally didn't even find it titillating, but I suppose if one has the hots for Emma Stone, it likely would be.

I saw one review that basically said the viewer was apprehensive about watching it, but was glad they did even if they likely won't watch it again. The story has a positive outcome. She is the heroine. Along the way there are fascinating characters, beautiful cinematography, lots of humor, an innocence from looking at the world through what's basically a child's eye, a morality play on the meaning of love and family, a triumph of self-acceptance, and the emergence of a confident woman with power to decide her own path. And yes, plenty of creepiness too. As I noted in my first post, it's a ton to unpack as weirdness and discomfort comes flying at you from all directions very quickly.

In the end, I can't say I felt "dirty" for watching the thing, but I also can't say I feel totally clean either as the argument that if it's a chlld's brain, it's a child, is valid. I suppose I'd respond with, "it's all in the context". Ultimately, my feeling is that it was a pretty heroic effort by Stone to deliver such a unique character and take such risks doing so. But YMMV, and it's perfectly understandable to take a pass based on personal morality regarding the sexual elements of the film.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
You are right. Scott should have gotten 160,000 extras and filmed every skirmish of Austerlitz exactly as it happened to make it completely authentic. That would have made sense.

The Austrians and Russians ran right into a trap. The Czar of Russia, who was at the battle, attested to the Satschen Lake catastrophe. Or you can believe Napoleon's weird claim that he drained a lake in the middle of winter right after a battle (with early 19th century technology, while in a war zone) to see how many dead Russians were at the bottom. From a propaganda standpoint, Napoleon made every effort to make it seem like he was merciful in his victory, when in reality thousands were killed fleeing when the Allied army collapsed. Breaking up ice that Russians were trying to flee across probably seemed like fun in the moment, but it was not going to play well in political circles when Napoleon was trying to end fighting in Europe. Napoleon actually claimed to be merciful when he accepted Emperor Francis' surrender so not appearing to be a bloodthirsty mass murderer was important to him.

Napoleon and Wellington did not meet, but it did not make sense to introduce more characters at that point in the movie, and it was not a big deal.

The entire Egypt invasion could have been skipped. It didn't add to the story and it is a weird side note to the historical record that doesn't make sense there either.

I didn't think the movie was that good either. I just disagree with your characterization of the movie being a BS sandwich and wanted to point out that you are wrong on the Battle of Austerlitz. Just like you are wrong on Shogun. You are not very good with this history stuff, are you?
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If you actually had any sense you’d watch an actually good Napoleon Movie called Waterloo.

It had 20,000 extras and stars Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer.

Scott’s movie is garbage.

They drained the “ponds” after the battle. They found two bodies.

There was no lake. It’s utter bulkshit and a ripoff of an actual good movie called Alexander Nevsky.

Napoleon was not at Antoinette’s execution.

He didn’t prove that he could have kids with a teenager, he had already had multiple illegitimate children

Going back to France to see Josephine in 1815?
Josephine was 6 feet under by 1814

He never led any Cavalry charge. He was an Artllerist.

The movie is an utter joke and will be laughed about and then forgotten.
 
storrsroars said:
I get the reticence. I don't know how to best describe the sex parts, but as she was in turbo-driven sexual awakening mode and a more than willing participant, it just didn't seem as bad as it sounds, especially when played as comedy. That said, at some point there was just too much of it. I personally didn't even find it titillating, but I suppose if one has the hots for Emma Stone, it likely would be.

I saw one review that basically said the viewer was apprehensive about watching it, but was glad they did even if they likely won't watch it again. The story has a positive outcome. She is the heroine. Along the way there are fascinating characters, beautiful cinematography, lots of humor, an innocence from looking at the world through what's basically a child's eye, a morality play on the meaning of love and family, a triumph of self-acceptance, and the emergence of a confident woman with power to decide her own path. And yes, plenty of creepiness too. As I noted in my first post, it's a ton to unpack as weirdness and discomfort comes flying at you from all directions very quickly.

In the end, I can't say I felt "dirty" for watching the thing, but I also can't say I feel totally clean either as the argument that if it's a chlld's brain, it's a child, is valid. I suppose I'd respond with, "it's all in the context". Ultimately, my feeling is that it was a pretty heroic effort by Stone to deliver such a unique character and take such risks doing so. But YMMV, and it's perfectly understandable to take a pass based on personal morality regarding the sexual elements of the film.
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I’m not wrong about Shogun. I pointed out that a character has plot armor. Which is factually correct.
 
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Movies are NOT history. The Right Stuff was a great movie. But it was virtually a piece of fiction woven around historic events. The problem with Napoleon is that is is a bad movie. It is dull, dark, long, boring and a waste of film.
 
The Zone of Interest. This movie has been nominated for and won awards, and critics seem to like it. It's the story of Rudolf Höss the Nazi commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. It's really about him, his wife Hilda and their children, who all lived in a nice house, with a nearby river, literally adjacent to the camp. You can see smokestacks and hear what's going on in the camp, which is managed by Hoss. Yet they swim in their pool, or the river, the kids play and they act like they in a suburban neighborhood. They also enjoy the spoils of those brought to the camp. He works with engineers to improve "efficiency". If that sounds truly monstrous and inhumanly awful, well yes. Unfortunately, that's the movie. There's no story arc really just the juxtaposition of his family's attempt to live a nice life while having no empathy compassion or feeling at all about the events at the camp next door. If you can imagine being there and watching that family go through their daily activities and listen to what they talk about, the movie is like that.

I don't recommend it. There is nothing to be learned that you can't get from that summary or Wikipedia. If you feel like you need a refresher on how truly horrific, cold, efficient and brutal the holocaust was, well, this will do it.
 
Palatine said:
Movies are NOT history. The Right Stuff was a great movie. But it was virtually a piece of fiction woven around historic events. The problem with Napoleon is that is is a bad movie. It is dull, dark, long, boring and a waste of film.
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At least The Right Stuff had some basis in reality.

What that clown Ridley Scott did was the equivalent of having Abraham Lincoln defending Little Round Top in the movie Gettysburg.
 
Poor Things is a comedy. I admit it took me awhile to realize it. Dafoe was especially hilarious.
 
Waquoit said:
Poor Things is a comedy. I admit it took me awhile to realize it. Dafoe was especially hilarious.
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Wow. I expected Poor Things to win a few art/design/camera awards, but not Emma Stone. Thought Lily Gladstone was a shoo-in for performance and, hate to say it, political reasons. But Emma was friggin amazing in a huge risk-taking part.
 
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