I watched Son of Ingagi (1940) an all black horror/syfy film that was interesting enough.

Now I am watching Adios Amigos (1975) a comedy western with Richard Pryor. Pretty funny in the beginning.

Trying to cut back on podcasts, but I found movies easier to ease into than music for some reason, so I spent all day yesterday watching movies then writing how I felt about them.



THE KING OF COMEDY (3.5/5)

Pauline Kael famously hated this movie, and I get it. The silence and sterility with which this movie moves can be maddening, especially when the editing follows along and creates a specifically dispassionate feeling by jump cutting with little regard for the viewer's situational awareness. But then sometimes it works brilliantly, too - if the movie weren't so quiet, Pupkin's C-list stand-up routine would be a lot less interesting, nor would his waiting patiently in the lobby feel quite so unnerving.

De Niro was on to something here, but I think Scorcese struggled a bit to find the right frame of reference for it. He's directed funny dramas before, but this is clearly a dramatic comedy and I just don't think Scorcese gets comedy, something the last five minutes of the movie make clear for me as it's really the only time the movie specifically seeks out laugh lines and light-hearted music only to fall flat. In contrast, Masha serenading Jerry Langford or Rupert attempting to guide Jerry through the ransom call are legitimately funny moments even if they don't produce laughs.

The other struggle this movie has is an issue of perspective. We follow Rupert for most of the movie, and yet Scorcese opts to show these characters from the perspective of Jerry Langford and his staff. As a result, we never learn much about them as people, we never get any reasoning behind their obsession with this man other than that they have it. This plays better in the present than it likely did in its contemporaneous moment because we have so much additional text to draw from, whether that be Jake Gylenhaal's high-functioning compulsive obsessive Lou Bloom, or Aubrey Plaza's suicidal social media stalker Ingrid Thorburn. They (and the broader culture of fame in which we all now live) don't actually make The King of Comedy any better than it is, but it lets viewers fill in blanks in ways perhaps viewers of 1983 wouldn't have been able to do as easily.

Instead of filling in those blanks, Scorcese falls back on goofball movie nerd tropes like a Scooby Doo chase scene between Pupkin and studio security or a tense-for-no-reason street chase between Masha and Langford (seriously, what is the point?) or a house full of burning candles that our generation has rightly mined for parody rather than some kind of genuinely dramatic or romantic scenario. There's certainly plenty of Scorcese's keen eye at play here, but I found myself now and again wondering what this movie would've been like in the hands of someone like Brian De Palma or John Landis, directors who might've picked a side and gunned for it rather than attempting to linger in a chaotic neutral. The uniformly great performances make up for much of his inactivity but not all of it; ultimately, The King of Comedy is a blueprint for the better, fuller movies that would follow its lead decades later.



A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (4/5)

Properly unsettling, and yet another shining example of Kubrick's one of a kind ability to envision how any old bland scene like the introduction of a test subject to a group of onlookers could have life thrust into it via the camera. If a line Alex delivers during his therapy - "the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen" - wasn't lifted from the novella, Kubrick was clearly putting a bit of himself into Alex. That gets to the heart of a problem this movie is only going to have to fight harder and harder to reckon with as society marches on, however, and that's it's leery objectification of women offered without any commentary of consequence.

Ostensibly understood to be wrong because Alex is punished for his actions, the camera obsesses over women's breasts every chance it can to the point that even other characters - grown men and wardens of prisoners - are shown to be shocked by a pair of breasts as if they'd seen the Light of God. The woman in the theater has beautiful breasts, sure, but it's troublesome that that's the point of her rape scene rather than the rape or the vileness of the boys attempting it. There is a lot of this movie that isn't that, and honestly I think (a RateYourMusic user named lonely_panda, whose review of this movie really ought to have been published somewhere) got at it far better than I could ever hope to, so let me just say this:

A Clockwork Orange might be lacking in subtlety, but subtle wasn't the point here, was it? The set design is so in love with the eccentricities of mod culture it pierces through the authenticity of Mad Men and back again like a wet fever dream. Save but a handful of lines, McDowell and many other actors here perform as if on stage, belly-voiced and emphatic beyond any known reality. Someone looking for small messages might come to the conclusion that by goading the audience into sympathizing with the "cured" Alex's problems, A Clockwork Orange is arguing in favor of his right to beat and rape people if that's his true will, or that his journey through the streets and forests of his hometown after being released are meant to draw a direct parallel between Alex and Christ. If this movie does any of that, it's merely by accident in pursuit of its grander allegory of who gets to decide what's moral and what's not, with the wealthy writer (whose insane overacting is a honest pleasure while also going to show how impressive Mark Margolis' performance as Tio Salamanca really was) whispering it at all of us through the guise of a phone conversation.

Do I think this movie deserves as much unfiltered praise as it's received? No, not really. But Kubrick was a director that plainly knew what would make for engaging cinema, and uses all his gifts with sight and sound to take a movie that by all rights should've simply been the Boondock Saints of its day and elevates schlock into art through sheer talent.




THE GRADUATE (4/5)

The Graduate is so full of definitive moments that even if you've never seen the movie, chances are you'll recognize at least half of it thanks to both mimicry and homage. What you might not be able to gather about the movie from its reputation, however, is how its 105 minutes manage to sneak an art film into a rom-com, or a rom-com into an art film, whichever you'd prefer.

The first half of the movie is an equally hilarious and emotional roller coaster, as we drift along with nervous wreck Ben Braddock in his post-graduation malaise, finding solace in the effortless confidence and big dick energy of Mrs. Robinson. The second half is essentially the formula for the modern romantic comedy as we still know it today, with instantaneous love, heroes and villains, not at all creepy stalking montages and a huge set piece to round out the show.

Anyone who argues that's a problem just doesn't like having fun at the movies, but anyone who doesn't recognize the capriciousness of this film's two halves is just being willfully obtuse. Whether you're coming for the former or the latter movie, I can't imagine why anyone would come away from The Graduate feeling fully satisfied; I've usually counted myself among the ones who wish we'd kept diving into late nights at the Taft Hotel, swinging a cross at the fastest ex-husband in history be damned.

One other small gripe: I've always thought the Simon & Garfunkel stuff is really overused, and compared to all the clever things Nichols pulls off with camera angles, lenses and perspectives it's disappointing to see him rely so heavily on the dreariness of "Scarborough Fair" and the fatalism of "Sounds of Silence", particularly considering he had a theme song and it would've fit the ending quite well.




WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF (4.5/5)

This is just a Made for Nodima ass movie, man. The utterly incomprehensible plot is about all that knocks it down from perfection, but this is why Glengarry Glen Ross is one of my favorite movies of all time: get some great performers, get some great dialogue and let them soar together. Always an exhausting watch, always a confounding watch, but an absolutely necessary one if you're ever thinking of calling yourself any kind of real movie fan. Especially for a first time director to wrangle these performances and capture it this smartly, it's just a phenomenal production all around.

Big and loud and fussy in a way that's totally owed to its origins as a stage production, there are so many ways this could've gone off the rails, but instead it's still king of the "repressed suburban couple lets their hair down" because that hyper-real approach leads to every character coming out the other end feeling like they've lived the centuries and centuries together that they joke about, and we've just got the one little second when it all snapped and broke apart to nibble on. Revolutionary Road might make a little more sense from a plot perspective, Blue Valentine is certainly more honest, Scenes from a Marriage is far more comprehensive, but if you want to feel the psychology of a relationship at its final moments, Virginia Woolf is the poetry that'll get you there.




TOMB RAIDER 2018 (3/5)

This is kind of a throwback to the lower stakes of action movies in the 2000s, stuff like The Mummy, the original trilogy of X-Men films and the xXx series. It's not always imaginatively shot and you know every beat the movie's planning to hit before the production company titles have finished, but it has so much heart to it and one or two higher quality set pieces that by the end you're totally bought in.

Vikander proves she's an actress to be reckoned with here; Ex Machina is all I've seen her in otherwise and it can be easy to hide behind stellar material and CGI that highlights your best features to the point of surreality. Tomb Raider offers her no easy outs, asking her to run and jump and scream and shout and chase a bunch of kids through a Southeast Asian pier market but still find time to develop a relationship with her father (Dominic West also comports himself with total class) and develop a charming comedy routine with Nick Frost (okay, that part's probably not hard). She's game for all of it, and portrays Lara Croft with the sort of investment it took most of the Marvel roster until the third phase to commit so earnestly.

The two highlight sequences? A comedy of errors aboard a rotten military plane at the cliff of a waterfall that probably kicked ass in a theater environment and the token bit where the director and actors fake a video game scenario for a moment, with Lara stealthing her way through enemy camp to rescue her friends. The sound design and cleverness of the way she slinks in and through the environment is both clever on a regular film level and a nice, clean way of nodding to what made the Tomb Raider reboot special without getting too desperate about it. That's another nice thing about the movie, just about every acknowledgement that it's a video game is just a wink and a nod rather than full blown fan service or a bent over backwards and shoehorned element that's just weird out of context. The best sign yet that video game adapters might finally be learning from their comic counterparts. I really think this movie got a much harsher reception than it deserved and I wish I'd gone out to see it. Was it because too many people attach her face to a murderous android's and can't see the obvious charm she has? Because she is quite thin and that makes it somehow hard to believe she could be a video game character superhero? I go back to my comps earlier - those aren't "good" movies, but nobody took a shit on them either, we just let them be fun and take us on a dumb ride.

Would I recommend this movie? I don't know, not really I guess, but it's perfectly good empty calories when you're looking for an action flick with a pretty face. It's certainly not the disaster Assassin's Creed was. I hope they iron out the rougher edges and go on with the sequel. With Atomic Blonde, Anna, this movie, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, women are having a real moment in terms of kicking ass in theaters, but the moment still in search of its definitive film. This wasn't it, but Tomb Raider is the sort of franchise that could deliver that and Vikander's got the skill and the buy-in to take it there if the studio can give her a good enough script and big / clever enough action sequences.




~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

I want to see it before I watch the Joker.

Before the debate I watched this movie called Border about a lady who works as a Swedish customs agent and can smell emotions. So as border patrol she doesn't smell the contraband but the fear and nervousness that indicates someone should be searched. Anyway, she meets a man who's look and scent are striking. She grows closer to him and what she finds out about him and herself was surprising. This movie ended up having a bit of the folklore/fantasy element to it.

It was good, but **warning** there is a crime element to it and the crime that way committed was awful!!

Anti-gentrification, cheap alcohol & trying to look pretty in our twilight posting years (c) Big Reg
http://www.Tupreme.com

Its too slow for me..... I mean I dont mind slow burns and lingering shots.... but these eps could have easily been 45min to an hour instead of an hour and a half. I watch the first two eps. Debating if I want to stick with it.

I'm in the same boat, but two of the next three episodes are what was shown at Cannes, and I consistently hear that episodes 7-10 are pretty good, so...

It's an audacious show, I kind of want to see how it plays out. I might take 6 months to get there. It's not my fault I don't know Spanish fluently and had to read the subtitles but DAMN is episode 2 a lot of nothing.

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Euphoria(HBO) - it's kind of on Larry Clark tip, but I'm really enjoying the performances and style so far.

City on a Hill (SHO) - I'm kind on the fence if I want to keep going. Bacon is always a great scumbag, but it's so far just a collection of Boston/Southie tropes that we've seen over and over.

Animal Kingdom (TNT) - I kinda love this show because it knows exactly what it is. It's pretty much the anti Sons of Anarchy because SOA was the same type of show that swore it was epic top notch TV.

I need to catch up. I’m a season behind.

Damn. Should’ve binged last weekend.

I didnt even realize this season had started. I binged it last week

BLL is dope. They added Streep and she is killing it as the delusional mother who can’t believe her son was an abusive rapist.

Euphoria has Zyndeya as a drugged up teen in a drugged up HS. Music is banging, not sure I can watch it tho. That young wild stuff is mad uncomfortable and has me scared for my kids.

QS is still doing it big. Powerful stuff so far this season. Gorgeous cinema.

End Game. Well, I finally got a crispy version on the stick. This joint it mad long. I keep falling asleep. I watch an hour a night. Hopefully the 3rd act will live up to the hype because the middle of this is snooze fest. Too much talking, not enough action.

I’m waiting for Snowfall, Greenleaf and Succession.

It's not as good as it should be but it's good enough to keep going. I at least hope we're past Franklin being an idiot

I watch with my eldest grandson

and the handmaid’s tale

.

I was surprised at how engrossed I became watching this movie.

I was feeling pure joy!


https://twitter.com/MeeshUniVerSoul


"She was on that tip about stoppin' the violence
About my people she was teachin' me..."

This is stuff I'm re-watching that I've already watched on Amazon:

1. Fleabag season 2
Starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Fleabag--a lonely, 30-something woman who tries to piece back together her life and herself when she's shattered by grief. The story telling is creative and deep and funny. Fleabag season 2 is perfect and somehow even better than season 1 (which was in a league all on its own, already). I think Fleabag is one of the best TV shows of all time! The first time I watched season 2, this feeling came over me that I was watching something special. Fleabag made me fall in love with the creative project that it cooks up.

2. Mozart in the Jungle
I'm sad Amazon Prime cancelled this show. Some episodes of Mozart in the Jungle feel magical. It's all about the loves and passions found in an orchestra (and the orchestra's machine)--and how sometimes it's hard to love people as you try to understand those passions and bring them to life. The show is charming, feel-good, all heart, and without cynicism or snark.

Gael Garcia Bernal, Bernadette Peters, and Malcolm McDowell make this worth the watch, but Bernal is the star!

3. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
The Marvelous Maisel takes place in 1950s New York City. Mrs. Maisel is an upper middle class Jewish woman who pursues a stand-up career. I adore this show, especially the pacing of the dialogue, set design, and costuming. It appeals to my love for particularity and details. I didn't think I'd like Mrs. Maisel, and avoided watching it for a long time. I'm glad I was wrong.

It's a low-key, Real World type of Japanese reality show. FYI: subtitles are involved!

Six strangers (3 men, 3 women), move into a house and live together. At any time, for any reason, house mates can decide that they want to leave Terrace House. House mates don't have to leave one at a time, either.

When house mates leave Terrace House, a new set of house mates arrives to live at the house, so that the number of people in the house is always 6 (3 men, 3 women).

There's also a permanent cast of commentators. They talk to one another and the viewing audience about the people and happenings inside Terrace House.

I started The Boys last night but “The Kids” weren’t having it.

Someone said it was akin to Black Mirror, being that it's set in the not to distant future and the technology angle. What they don't say is that it ends up feeling like a watered down version of This Is Us mixed with A Million Little Things (ABC). I'll finish it one day but I'm out.

and I guess there is a bit of This Is Us in there since it revolves around one family

It’s dark as shit tho... and kind of scary given how things are going these last few years.

pretty similar to other shows about innocent people being convicted, but still held my attention.

such a trip!

watched it over the weekend.

It isn't good in my opinion. I mean one or two episodes were good, but there are a total of 8.

The Boys is the closest thing I've ever seen to what the world might actually be like if there was a such thing as superheroes. Pretty well-written show too. Definitely engaging.

Hanna is just brilliant period. I've been recommending it to everyone.

Speaking of superheroes, I watched Brightburn recently and it was hilarious as most horrors are to me. The superman angle gave it a pretty fresh perspective tho.

2 eps left. It's so fucking good

i enjoyed it more as the story developed but i wouldnt necessarily recommend it.

i cant really get into any shows lately. i did watch one episode of the boys (thanks carls jr) it seemed okay. might watch more.

My wife is a fan of all things British television, so when Starz picked up this BBC series, MotherFatherSon, she was all over it. I started watching it with her, and was hooked.

Preacher is back for a final season, and while it has fallen off some (a lot), since the first season, I'm going to see it through to the end.

I don't know how I slept on Rick & Morty this long. I stopped paying attention to Adult Swim years ago. I sat down with my son and his buddies to watch an episode, and since then I've been binge watching as much as I can. Adult Swim OnDemand is stingy with making past seasons available for free. Every week or so they make a random 4-5 episodes free. So, I'm plowing through them as soon as they come up.

The first post game of thrones show I've liked. Went through a 10 episode season in a week, which for me is quick as shit.

Now that I'm through that I gotta find something new, but my patience is low for new shows.

Watching Netflix's Lost in Space now, which isn't too bad and is slickly shot.

Thanks for the rec though.

Read the description and it sounds like the type of thing that will make me homicidal. Can't wait.


"An enigmatic conservative Christian group known as the Family wields enormous influence in Washington, D.C., in pursuit of its global ambitions."

It’s the oldest profession lol

Starring:
Jimmi Simpson
Sir Ben Kingsley
Jacki Weaver
Terry O'Quinn
Luis Guzman
Chris Conrad
Kurtwood Smith
Damon Herriman
Hana Mae Lee

Sir Ben Kingsley sings a cover of Prince's "When Doves Cry" and it's everything.

I love this show.

Anime about vikings, but pretty accessible (and thoughtful) to non-anime fans. I never binge anything but I did with this. In some ways reminds me of Game of Thrones.

I was already a fan of the Manga so I been hyped for the anime. Looks like they did it right.

https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/baskets

..dude could've easily won the BSA Emmy every year for his role as Christine Baskets.

The show is hilarious.




*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

and kept it up for 4 seasons now.

..like, "..damn, this mom rocks!.. wait!.. THAT'S LOUIS ANDERSON!.. "

Happens at least once an ep.


*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

I loved this series! I was crunching on ice the whole time though...

That’s about it.

pretty good so far...

I want to meet some of you based on your viewing pleasures...lol

The Terror: Infamy (AMC)
Thumbs up so far. I'm biased tho; I root for Asian-American films/tv to be successful. Objectively, cinematography is first-rate and the revelation of details is done in a manner to my liking (e.g., 1st episode- the 2 people walking on the pier after dinner; you'll miss something if you not aware of the entire frame). Waiting to see if the filmmakers didn't waste the opportunity to do interesting things with the historical context/setting. The lead actor is pretty shitty smh.

The Naked Director Season 1 (Netflix)
Just finished it a few nights ago. Entertaining binge watch. Kinda wish they didn't play as much material for silly laughs. Misato Morita as Kaoru Kuroki is so fuckin magnetic. Gotta check her other stuff out. A bunch of stuff dealing with periphery characters are not as resonant as it could've been. It's a damn shame because doing so would've elevated the material even with the comedic tones kept as is. The lead actor is pretty shitty here, too smh.

Oh yeah...S7 of Catfish..lol







*************************************

Fuck aliens

-Warriorpoet415

#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/thirtythree.three/

The Greatest Story (N)ever Told (finished)
http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=18&topic_id

All 4 are GREAT!!!

I need to catch up on Dave Makes Man

Mad Dogs was fucking nuts


*************************************

Fuck aliens

-Warriorpoet415

#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/thirtythree.three/

The Greatest Story (N)ever Told (finished)
http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=18&topic_id

The first couple of episodes were better than the rest, but it was still good. The short person walking in with the cat mask and the gun was one of the most "WTF?" television moments I've seen in years.

just started season 3

couple things....

I told my son if anything goes down and he needs to run, not to come see me. I could live with never seeing him again than him going to jail. The cops know you’ll always come back to see mama. I cried at that part...

then...

Kevin declares war and melody getting turn out. Imagine that as a parent...a cop

good show...

We had a black cop like in my neighborhood lol

and I definitely wonder when some folks haven’t seen certain movies.

Why would Dre think his kids have seen that movie if he never showed it to them?