Uncut Gems - on Netflix. I thought it was a great, if remorselessly stressful film to watch. Sandler is great, the soundtrack is weird, but memorable and the storyline surprising, shocking and amusing in equal measure. A good two hours of bum clenching fun (ooh matron).
Jojo Rabbit - loved it. If you don't like Taiki's sense of humoru it won't be for you. Stunning performances from the kids, Johnasson knocks it out of the park, and Rockwell has a role perfect for him. Right balance of humour and sadness without ever being mawkish.
Uncut Gems - on Netflix. I thought it was a great, if remorselessly stressful film to watch. Sandler is great, the soundtrack is weird, but memorable and the storyline surprising, shocking and amusing in equal measure. A good two hours of bum clenching fun (ooh matron).
I still haven't gotten around to it yet, as Netflix + Sandler usually equals 'avoid', obviously, so it wasn't on my radar until I learnt a bit more about it. It sounds a lot like 'Good Time', the Safdie's previous film', in a lot of ways though - an at least vaguely uncomfortable and/or stressful experience, with an against-type leading performance and a notable soundtrack (by Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, whose brand of weird is one I'm quite partial to).
So, yeah, Good Time is worth a watch as well, basically.
Got an urge to watch Parasite tomorrow.
I wonder if since the Oscar they might actually put Parasite on in Cinemas outside London?
Few recent watches.
Marriage Story is brilliant, funny, melancholy, and incredibly well-acted. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver are fantastic.
Jojo Rabbit was great. Surprised by the mixed critical response to be honest; I thought it was daft, endearing fun. (And utterly heartbreaking, obvs.)
Little Women is an absolute joy. Saoirse Ronan is perfect, and I can't quite understand how Greta Gerwig didn't get a Best Director nod. She takes what could have been a confusing screenplay, and tells the story effortlessly. The use of colour was incredible.
Going to see Parasite tomorrow.
It's been a bloody incredible few months for films.
I'm unfamiliar with the director's previous efforts, but having just seen Dev Patel in David Copperfield and wondering why someone with his talent is not a massive superstar (hint: it's racism), The Green Knight looks extremely interesting.
David Copperfield was also bloody brilliant. So many great films in such a short space of time!
Also yeah that's a great trailer for Green Knight. It's A24 too, who did Uncut Gems and Lady Bird. Going to see Lady Bird tonight at the Prince Charles.
Took our four year old to see Sonic the Hedgehog this morning. Against all odds, it's actually pretty good! Very insubstantial, and a little uneven in pretty much every department, but it's funny and exciting and Jim Carrey is having the time of his life.
Probably not worth going to the cinema for unless you've got a kid who's eager to see it, but once it hits Netflix it's a breezy way to pass a couple hours.
I'm seriously considering an Odeon limitless card - now that Miles is old enough to sit through an entire movie, I'd like to go regularly with him; seeing more than two movies a month, the subscription would cover the price of my own tickets at least.
Terminator: Genesis was an awful lot better than I expected it to be.
Is that the one with Emilia Clarke? I know I've seen it, but can't really remember it. I think I thought it was okay, but the guy playing Reese was totally wrong.
That's the one. It's the sort-of reboot where they make a new timeline which is then forgotten about.
I enjoyed Castle on the Sky. Had none of the usual Ghibli creepiness (well, a bit, but not in an unsettling way).
Is this creepiness anything to do with 'ma'? It's famously what sets Miyazaki's films apart – the silence, the emptiness he inserts into every scene. I find it incredibly relaxing.
It's mentioned in this interview, halfway down.
https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hayao-miyazaki-interview
I watched Peter Rabbit this weekend, don’t judge me. He’s a horrible little wanker and I laughed like a drain all the way through.
Is this creepiness anything to do with 'ma'? It's famously what sets Miyazaki's films apart – the silence, the emptiness he inserts into every scene. I find it incredibly relaxing.
That could well be it, I think.
I watched Peter Rabbit this weekend, don’t judge me.
Sorry, I'd already judged you by the end of the fourth word.
I watched Peter Rabbit this weekend, don’t judge me. He’s a horrible little wanker and I laughed like a drain all the way through.
My daughter loves Peter Rabbit. He is a 24-carrot (wahey!) wanker, though. Thank God for Lily, though I'd like to see Peter come a cropper, though. Like, get really hurt, but not life-altering injuries.
Is this what being a parent is like? Wishing ill on an animated character, and getting anxious whenever the Ninky-nonk is getting ready to leave without waiting for the Tombliboos to get back on the fucking thing?
CBeebies is an emotional minefield, TBH.
I think Peter Rabbit wouldn't be quite as much of a horrible little wanker if he wasn't voice by James Corden, I can get through life pretty much avoiding him and Russell Brand until the kids want to watch Peter Rabbit or Hop
Perfect casting though, you instantly hate the little furry bastard the second he opens his mouth because of the subliminal association with Corden.
Peter Rabbit is kind of the polar opposite of the Paddington movies - two films which I love dearly, but all their wide-eyed, big-hearted generosity feels very dated already in post-Brexit Britain. It's like Paddington could only have been made in those few years between the Olympics and the Brexit vote, when people were actually feeling good about themselves. Now we're officially a horrible country full of racists and Tories, we get Peter Rabbit. Peter Rabbit has no generosity of spirit, it has two hours of people hurting themselves on electric fences and blowing each other up and it leaves you with a simmering resentment of rabbits. It's perfect.
I watche Parasite and I'm still thinking about it. Very good film.
Did seriously no one else watch Parasite? T_T
Sorry… 
Did seriously no one else watch Parasite? T_T
I've been meaning to get to it – but by the time our kid's in bed, a subtitled psychodrama doesn't feel as appealing as other stuff.
I did! It was flipping incredible.
I almost wanted to have a contrary opinion, going in. The praise has been SO universal, I was ready to be slightly disappointed. But nope, just one of the best films I've seen in recent memory. The genre shifts were incredible, and that whole sequence – starting where the Kims are eating dinner in the rain, ending maybe 30 minutes later – will go down as one of the best of all time.
Yeah, the tension really kicks up towards the end, I winced at least at one part because it was so brutal. It was the ending that really got me though, I felt called out. :(
Everyone in the whole world knows this already but My Neighbour Totoro is really, really good, isn't it?
My boy was enthralled throughout. He's not much of a movie watcher, at all - normally he misses some dialogue or gets confused by characters' motivations, and visibly loses interest after the first half hour - but here the slow pace, likeable characters and minimal dialogue obviously appealed to him. It's a far cry from the usual Pixar rubbish people try to recommend for kids, which is always just full of characters wisecracking at each other all the time.
Definitely going to check out some other Ghibli stuff now.
I thought Totoro was meandering and aimless, and ended just when I thought it was about to get going. I don't know, maybe my expectations were off, though I can't remember now what exactly those expectations were.
Definitely going to check out some other Ghibli stuff now.
Worth saying, perhaps, that they're not all quite so sedate. Kiki's Delivery Service is pretty relaxed, albeit with some action and mild peril at the end, but you might want to give Princess Mononoke (violent in places and a bit scary) and Spirited Away (takes a couple of turns into body horror-adjacent territory) a look before showing them to your kids.
Two others, that our 4yo has enjoyed, are The Cat Returns, a whimsical fairy tale-type story, though potentially a little plot-heavy given what you said above, and Castle in the Sky, which is a bit more swashbuckling and adventure-focused (though again might need a bit more attention to dialogue).
Brilliant, thanks for that. I’d already earmarked Kiki and Castle in the Sky as potential next steps, and will probably tackle at least one of those this weekend. He seems keen to watch more, which basically never happens, so it’s been a big success.
I thought Totoro was meandering and aimless, and ended just when I thought it was about to get going. I don't know, maybe my expectations were off, though I can't remember now what exactly those expectations were.
yes I also am frustrated by the lack of narrative drive in my neighbor totoro
I can't tell if Luscan is being sarcastic or not, but I can kind of see why someone introduced to Ghibli/Miyazaki by Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away (or even Kiki's Delivery Service) might be expecting more from Totoro than the relaxed meandering that it actually delivers.
Very little happens for most of it (and what does happen is implied to be imaginary anyway), then out of nowhere there's some really quite heavy emotional drama, and then it's all resolved and the movie ends.
Anyone else tempted with a rewatch of Outbreak on Netflix? It's actually a decent film and the science isn't too bad as film science goes. But considering the current situation there are quite a few bits in it which will have you making "oof" noises and hissing air across your teeth.
Outbreak is the Dustin Hoffman one, isn’t it? And Contagion is the more recent one (with Matt Damon?)?
I’m half-expecting to watch them at some point, even if it’s not until this is all over. It might be sort of cathartic then.
Is it odd that people are gravitating to all this stuff? I mean, as an example, my mum is normally mildly afraid of any board game more complicated than Tsuro, but she told me she was looking at Pandemic the other day…
I think what appeals about those is the possibility of victory - I mean, you can win in the board game Pandemic.
You can? I think I've been playing it wrong.
Well, theoretically…
The furious, self-righteous basement virgins have won.
I hadn't realised that they had given up on the DC Cinematic Universe after Justice League.
As for details regarding the release: the plan is to roll THE SNYDER CUT out in 2021, with either a 4-hour director's cut or a six-chapter series. According to THR, Snyder is currently wrangling together "the original postproduction crew to score, cut and finish visual effects."
FOUR HOURS
Has there ever been a Director’s Cut that’s an unqualified improvement over the original? I can only think of Blade Runner, and even that’s debatable.
Kingdom of Heaven's extended cut is supposedly pretty transformative, though I've not seen either version.
Related:
The Coen Bros. cut of Blood Simple was actually shorter than the original, which is something because it was a pretty tight film anyway.
I prefer the Directors Cut of Blade Runner (the first one, I haven't seen the more recent one)
The extended cut of Aliens is not an improvement.
The extended cut of Abyss is better.
A lot of director's cuts/extended editions are interesting, rather than "better", per se; Lord of the Rings being perhaps the most famous example. There are some people who might claim to prefer the Extended Cut, but the theatrical releases have way better pacing, and - as their success proved - work just fine without that extra hour of hardcore-fan minutae.
Aliens is similar - if you're already a fan, then more details of the setting and bits of backstory are cool, but the longer, baggier version is rarely the way you'd want to experience it for the first time.
I guess that's the thing, isn't it - a Director's Cut is usually just an Extended Cut, the same movie with extra stuff spliced in. Actually The Return of the King was one of the movies that came to mind as being an actual improvement with the extra scenes added, sure it's longer but it does make a load more sense in its longer form and means it's not so dominated by its endless epilogues. But then you've got nonsense like the extended cuts of the Hobbit, a trilogy that could have done with losing two entire movies rather than adding even more singing and orcs.
I guess at least this Zack Snyder cut will be interesting, because it should be significantly different, rather than just the same movie with some extra stuff. But I suspect it'll just be a new way to experience a terrible film.
That was why the extended Abyss was so good, if almost felt like a different film. Saying that, it's been over twenty years since I watched it, I don't know how well it's aged.
I watched Star Trek last night - as in the JJ Abrams movie, which in the manner of all unimaginatively-titled reboots will forever be known as Star Trek 2009.
I was a bit blown away by it to be honest. I've seen it before, a long time ago, but I've watched a lot more Trek since then and become a bit of a fan. This is really unbelievably good, given what it's trying to achieve. I mean. It recasts some of the most iconic pop culture characters of all time, and gets pretty much all of them bang on. (OK, I'm not convinced about Simon Pegg. But he gets a pass because he's Simon Pegg). It reboots the series without invalidating any of the previous 50+ years of Star Trek, in fact enriching it (the recent Picard series built directly off the events of this movie). It uses the primary-colour aesthetic of the original series and somehow manages to make it look great, and not ridiculous. It's an origin story for half a dozen different characters that also has a pretty good plot. Then halfway through it brings in LEONARD FUCKING NIMOY and still somehow manages not to have him completely upstage the rest of the cast.
I haven't seen the other two at all, I know Into Darkness has a bit of a shaky reputation. But this movie at least is great.
Oh boy, Gar's take on the musical bit in the third film is going to make or break me.
[Trek 2009] at least is great.
I couldn't disagree more. Trek '09 is a breathless, empty rollercoaster that gets by on nostalgia and the momentary goodwill generated by the flashing lights and excitement of its action set-pieces (see also: The Force Awakens).
Character motivations, when there are any, are muddled or contradictory; the frankly ludicrous ending that sees Kirk promoted to captain makes no logical sense given the events of the film and can only be accepted by the audience because they already know that he's supposed to be Captain Kirk (as does Pike, who's apparently seen TOS, because there is zero evidence to support his faith in Kirk).
More Extended Edition madness: apparently now the entitled neckbeards are calling for the release of an extended cut of Revenge of the Sith of all the fucking things.
Apparently they believe the original version was over four hours long, which sounds like both (a) a fundamental misunderstanding of that arcane art known as "film editing" and (b) something that should be banned under the Geneva convention. But here we are.
You can even sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/george-lucas-release-4-hour-long-star-wars-revenge-of-the-sith although I'll obviously disown you if you do.