What Movie Are You Watching Or Watched Today?

[firehazard]

Some of them are actually older than me anyway.

I understand they didn't begin the movie that way though.

Thinking about it, I'm sure I was older when the movie finished than I was when it began. Weird, that.

[DzM]

Thinking about it, I'm sure I was older when the movie finished than I was when it began. Weird, that.

Well, that DOES beat the alternative, I guess.

[Frances]

Thinking about it, I'm sure I was older when the movie finished than I was when it began. Weird, that.

Well, that DOES beat the alternative, I guess.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html
There were multiple people with guns at that screening.

I have two relatives that attended high school with the Batman movie mass shooter. One played soccer against him.
My school (briefly) down the street produced the shooter who attacked the Jewish worship community on Passover last year. The Chinese restaurant across the street from the one I'd take said relatives to after the Saint Patrick's Day parade every year had nineteen shots fired into it by a recent California visitor who didn't like Gay people. That was a miracle case where nobody was killed or hit.

Oh America.

[Frances]

Marianne Faithfull biopic in the works by McQueen director.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84x21P4aGns

Hotel Carter appears @1:05 & 4:41.
(Weirdly between SoHo and Piccadilly Circus).
Mentioned many times here.
I didn’t realize it was sold and closed.
Rats!

[Frances]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxyon6mBXfU

[Frances]

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Like DiCaprio but this was not what I was expecting at all.
Brad Pitt actually won awards for this horse shit?
Alrighty.

Tim Roth’s cut character “He [played] Jay Sebring’s British butler, his British gentleman’s gentleman.” (-QT) sounds lame but who’s to say? We were trying to remember his role in Pulp Fiction, I thought he was in the OD scene. Wrong.

[Frances]

2007

[Frances]

[DzM]

The Lovely Mrs DzM and I watched 1917 the other day, and that got me in mind of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

My Reader Digest reviews:

1917 Well done. Not great, but well done. The conceit of the film - it's all done in one shot! I honestly found distracting. It just kept making me think "this whole thing took place over the course of 2.5 miles?" Time is compressed. Distance is compressed. But otherwise - it's a fine film. Worth seeing.

All Quiet ont he Western Front (1930) I watch this film every five years or so. It's like watching Metroplis. It is the ur-film of it's genre - the waste of war, youth and misspent patriotism and youthful optimism thrown away on the field of senseless battle, etc. It is Platoon and Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Yes, it suffers from the style of the time and what has become the cliches of the genre (and much like Metropolis) you have to look past these issues and say "these are cliches BECAUSE of this film." This film is brutal. It is cruel. It's worth watching every now and again. I find that while it does not necessarily give something new on each viewing, it reaffirms essential truths every time.

[old barney greyheron]

Dug out a few old faves recently from my own film library..
The Man Who Would Be King...Fight Club...Five Easy Pieces...All The President's Men...The Usual Suspects...Midnight Cowboy.

[Low D]

Over the last few days i have watched/re-watched the Alien franchise:

Alien (1979) - This has held up very well. I saw it in maybe 1981 or 2 on the iMax at Ontario place as a child, and the confusion & disorientation I felt in Giger's strange world remains. The presence of jobs and wages and exploitative companies (ie: capitalism) in space was revelatory to me at the time. They didn't have that in Star Wars (Han Solo is clearly black market economy, doesn't count). Noticed the xenomorph (the alien)'s movements were a bit rubbery, but since you hardly see it, it's irrelevant.

Aliens (1986) - Saw this one in the theatre aged 13, so i was worried it was a vacant action movie that I only liked because i was young and stupid, but it has also held up well. Models & costumes & physical sets - when done well - have aged so much better than the last 20 years of digital effects have. More importantly it was a good story.  If the individual characterizations of the marines were a bit hackneyed well that was part of the charm - if perhaps a bit racially stereotypical/reductive in places in a way you couldn't get away with now. The evil company rep is hackneyed too but also charming in the sense that it makes him easier to hate (if he called Ripley "kid" one more time, *I* was gonna smack him). All of these actually added humour that made the film less heavy than the original. Plus the glorious light of a wee girl named Newt to give us hope - "Affirmative!"

ALIEN³ (1992) - Saw this one at the time, didn't even bother to re-watch it because it's just bad. Even if we could forgive them for unceremoniously dispatching Hudson & Newt at the beginning, it was still just a bad movie. However, the concept of the xenomorph interacting with host DNA was a good one, and Ripley taking herself out of the equation at the end was also good. Actually kind of a brave ending for an otherwise stupid movie. Unless they do something stupid like resurrect her somehow for a sequel, but they'd never...

Alien Resurrection (1997) - I had never seen this. I'm sure i've heard a few times that it was "pretty good" but it was just so dumb. There's so much one could do with the xenomorph and the evil company and even the androids... but they couldn't NOT make a Ripley movie because hollywood producers are spineless and brainless. So we get a clone 200 years later that somehow has her memories. Great. The concept of the xenomorph evolving after interacting with host DNA is brought back, sort of. First the queen is 'normal' and produces 'normal' aliens, but then moves on to "stage 2" and gives birth like a human to a new alien? So. Stupid. Joss Whedon wrote this shit? An embarrassment on an already-sullied franchise. It does feature Ron Perlman being Ron Perlman, though, so I guess that's worth a few points.

Oh well on to Ridley Scott's prequels.  AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON RIDLEY SCOTT! How can he be so inconsistent? How could he produce a thoughtful classic like Thelma & Louise at almost the same time as a colonial piece of garbage like 1492?  IS HE REALLY TWO PEOPLE ONE IS GREAT THE OTHER IS TERRIBLE?  Further investigation required.

[Fr. McGreer]

Over the last few days i have watched/re-watched the Alien franchise:

Alien (1979) - This has held up very well. I saw it in maybe 1981 or 2 on the iMax at Ontario place as a child, and the confusion & disorientation I felt in Giger's strange world remains. The presence of jobs and wages and exploitative companies (ie: capitalism) in space was revelatory to me at the time. They didn't have that in Star Wars (Han Solo is clearly black market economy, doesn't count). Noticed the xenomorph (the alien)'s movements were a bit rubbery, but since you hardly see it, it's irrelevant.

Aliens (1986) - Saw this one in the theatre aged 13, so i was worried it was a vacant action movie that I only liked because i was young and stupid, but it has also held up well. Models & costumes & physical sets - when done well - have aged so much better than the last 20 years of digital effects have. More importantly it was a good story.  If the individual characterizations of the marines were a bit hackneyed well that was part of the charm - if perhaps a bit racially stereotypical/reductive in places in a way you couldn't get away with now. The evil company rep is hackneyed too but also charming in the sense that it makes him easier to hate (if he called Ripley "kid" one more time, *I* was gonna smack him). All of these actually added humour that made the film less heavy than the original. Plus the glorious light of a wee girl named Newt to give us hope - "Affirmative!"

ALIEN³ (1992) - Saw this one at the time, didn't even bother to re-watch it because it's just bad. Even if we could forgive them for unceremoniously dispatching Hudson & Newt at the beginning, it was still just a bad movie. However, the concept of the xenomorph interacting with host DNA was a good one, and Ripley taking herself out of the equation at the end was also good. Actually kind of a brave ending for an otherwise stupid movie. Unless they do something stupid like resurrect her somehow for a sequel, but they'd never...

Alien Resurrection (1997) - I had never seen this. I'm sure i've heard a few times that it was "pretty good" but it was just so dumb. There's so much one could do with the xenomorph and the evil company and even the androids... but they couldn't NOT make a Ripley movie because hollywood producers are spineless and brainless. So we get a clone 200 years later that somehow has her memories. Great. The concept of the xenomorph evolving after interacting with host DNA is brought back, sort of. First the queen is 'normal' and produces 'normal' aliens, but then moves on to "stage 2" and gives birth like a human to a new alien? So. Stupid. Joss Whedon wrote this shit? An embarrassment on an already-sullied franchise. It does feature Ron Perlman being Ron Perlman, though, so I guess that's worth a few points.

Oh well on to Ridley Scott's prequels.  AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON RIDLEY SCOTT! How can he be so inconsistent? How could he produce a thoughtful classic like Thelma & Louise at almost the same time as a colonial piece of garbage like 1492?  IS HE REALLY TWO PEOPLE ONE IS GREAT THE OTHER IS TERRIBLE?  Further investigation required.

Great review. I've only seen the original 1979 movie and that was probably 20 years ago. I won't bother watching the others.

[DzM]

Great review. I've only seen the original 1979 movie and that was probably 20 years ago. I won't bother watching the others.

Alien is a classic who-will-survice-invisible-enemy genre movie. It's fantastic. Aliens is a classic under-siege-pressure-cooker movie. It, too, is a classic. Both are very much worth watching.

The others have some interesting ideas but are basically just piles of trash with a small flower trying to grow from the top. And then the universe just got screwed by the Alien vs Predator stupidity.

Prometheus and Covenant are beautiful films. Really gorgeous. And stupid as shit. They would be SO MUCH better if Mr. Scott had just decided to make origin-of-man films and not bother trying to tie them into the Alien universe.

[Low D]

The others have some interesting ideas but are basically just piles of trash with a small flower trying to grow from the top.

Apparently Aliens 3 director has been quoted along the lines "I know a lot of people hate that movie, but nobody hates it more than me, I wish i could have stood up to the producers" so fair play to him for admitting.

And then the universe just got screwed by the Alien vs Predator stupidity.

Never seen and never plan to. It's best, i think, to just pretend they didn't happen. Apparently James Cameron (who directed 'Aliens') was considering working on a V, but after the A vs. P he decided the franchise was tainted, compared it to 'Dracula vs. Frankenstein'.

Prometheus and Covenant are beautiful films. Really gorgeous. And stupid as shit. They would be SO MUCH better if Mr. Scott had just decided to make origin-of-man films and not bother trying to tie them into the Alien universe.

That is this week's job, will let you know!

[left]

Speaking of sequels and remakes, has anybody seen the lion king (2019)? As a kid I *loved* the original, especially the soundtrack (yeah, Elton included).