All Things Movie/Documentary Reviews/Recommendations Thread

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Ope3 said:
I had very high hopes considering the critic's reviews as well as recommendations from family members regarding the movie Sing Sing.

It did not disappoint. It's a tremendous film and wonderful experience, in all aspects.

The way that it was filmed, I actually felt like we were invited to the hoosegow, to watch a play.

Best prison buddy film since The Shawshank Redemption. Maybe as good. Seriously.


Colman Domingo is a virtual certainty to be recognized for nominations when Award Season arrives.
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In what is generally a rarity for me, I actually went back to the theater (which was nearly full) to see Sing Sing, as it was released now 5 months later in an Awards season push.

I appreciate it all the more on a second viewing, especially knowing more of the backstory and that so many of the acting troupe were actually playing themselves. That includes the 2nd lead, Clarence "Divine Eye" Macklin, who has been making some rounds on talk shows.

I picked up on a few things that I missed the previous go around as well.

I think it's easily one of the best movies of the 21st Century.
 


Best Picture Oscar Nominees:

- Anora
- The Brutalist
- A Complete Unknown
- Conclave
- Dune: Part Two
- Emilia Pérez
- I'm Still Here
- Nickel Boys
- The Substance
- Wicked

I'm shocked that Sing Sing did not make the grade. I thought it was a shoo-in, not just based on how much I liked it but how high it ranked with critics and other accolades/nominations. To a lesser extent A Real Pain also is a mild surprise. I find it bizarre that The Substance was chosen over both.

Both films are nominated in Screenplay categories as well as Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) for Actor and Kieran Culkin for Supporting Actor (A Real Pain).
 

A thumbnail sketch of 4 new movies I saw in January:

The Last Showgirl - Pamela Anderson can still bring the heat. While her performance (as well as as Jamie Lee Curtis & David Bautista in supporting roles) are quite good, still a mild thumbs down. Could have used a little more levity, like Anora for characters working in a similar industry.

Babygirl - Nicole Kidman can still bring the heat. Interesting character study. Mild thumbs up.

The Room Next Door - This one is a solid thumbs up. Pretty good. Julianne Moore & Tilda Swinton are virtuosos at this acting thing and just a pleasure to watch. I was intrigued to see Pedro Almodovar behind an English speaking moving (his first as a director) and I thought it played well. It has his typical used of colors and cinematography.

September 5 - Also a solid thumbs up. It's similar to Saturday Night in that we see a behind the scenes event in a pretty new medium, television in it's infancy. Very intriguing how the wove actual footage/coverage of the Munich 1972 Terrorist Attack into the film. I felt like the real Jim McKay was a supporting character in the film.

Sidenote, I found it interesting that the movie is about ABC's coverage, yet the film is a Paramount production, owned by CBS.
 
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Wicked. Not as bad as I thought it would be. It's really well done, just not for me.

I didn't realize Galinda was such a snot.
 


I've had pretty good luck seeing Foreign Language films up for Oscar Awards with little to no background knowledge of the plots heading in:

The Worst Person in the World
Parallel Mothers
The Zone of Interest
Anatomy of a Fall

Add from Brazil the film I'm Still Here to the list. It's fantastic. Even though it happened in my lifetime, I was quite unaware of the political circumstances on Brazil circa 1970.

It also turns out while my rudimentary understanding of Spanish helps me when seeing films in that language, it does not provide much or any benefit for a film in Portuguese.

Even though I had to rely 100% on the subtitles, the acting translated well.
 

Watched an old one called Ravenous (1999) starring Guy Pearce. Very strange movie about cannibalism. Really gory with a couple surprising turns.
 





A dive into the dregs of society. Hulu's Scamanda. But only if you really want to hate someone.
 

The Brutalist is epic and very worthwhile. All the accolades it's receiving on so many levels are all deserved.

I didn't think that they made movies like this anymore. I'm glad they did.
 

Ope3 said:
The Brutalist is epic and very worthwhile. All the accolades it's receiving on so many levels are all deserved.

I didn't think that they made movies like this anymore. I'm glad they did.
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Just started watching it. That good? Will make it a point to continue on with it. Thanks.
 




Ope3 said:
Yes, pretty good. Adrien Brody & Guy Pearce give great performances.
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Wow, that was a long one. They really did give great performances.
Went from watching episodes of Reacher Season 3 to this. Quite the difference for a simple mind like mine.
 

Ope3 said:
The Last Showgirl - Pamela Anderson can still bring the heat. While her performance (as well as as Jamie Lee Curtis & David Bautista in a supporting roles) are quite good, still a mild thumbs down. Could have used a little more levity, like Anora for characters working in a similar industry.
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Thought Curtis was great and Bautista was good. Lot of fluff or filler time where there's nothing going on but the character is being filmed with some music in the background. Yeah, agree with your take on it. Think I liked it because it gave roles to Anderson and Curtis.
 

Ope3 said:
I saw A Complete Unknown. Spoiler Alert, things work out all right for Bobby Z from Minneapolis.

I thought it was great, both the story and the music. Really great set design. Just how I imagine the Village in the early 60s to be.

How they pulled off the song performances, live to tape with actors not known for music chops was just an unbelievable achievement. Had to be over 50 songs referenced.
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Finally saw it. Chalamet, Norton, Fanning, Barbaro were all good. Certainly a thumbs up. The King, Dune 1 and 2 and now this, Timothy is really rolling.
 

Watched The King again because of Chalamet. Sean Harris was tremendous as the King's Chief Justice. Played the part so well. Great job portraying an elderly figure.
 

With the Oscars on the books, I can't take any issue at all with any of the winners.

The show itself was good, I liked Conan as the host.
 

Ope3 said:
I've had pretty good luck seeing Foreign Language films up for Oscar Awards with little to no background knowledge of the plots heading in:

The Worst Person in the World
Parallel Mothers
The Zone of Interest
Anatomy of a Fall

Add from Brazil the film I'm Still Here to the list. It's fantastic. Even though it happened in my lifetime, I was quite unaware of the political circumstances on Brazil circa 1970.

It also turns out while my rudimentary understanding of Spanish helps me when seeing films in that language, it does not provide much or any benefit for a film in Portuguese.

Even though I had to rely 100% on the subtitles, the acting translated well.
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I'm Still Here took home the Best Foreign Language film. Quite worthy.
 

In an effort to see all the Best Picture Nominees, I saw two films I otherwise would have likely passed on.

Dune 2.

Actually I hadn't seen Dune 1 either, so I watched that earlier in the week. These are both well executed films with extraordinary casts. Saying that...I just don't get it. The plot is extremely confusing and convoluted, and I just can't keep up nor ever really cared to.

Dune 1 everyone appears to be in either in need of a nap or in a zombielike trance. Apparently it has something to do with SPICE. Dune 2 a few characters seemed to have a pulse. SPOILER ALERT if you give a rip, when the Josh Brolin character re-appeared it got mildly interesting. The ending was interesting, but after 5 hours between the 2 volumes not much of a payoff. Of course another volume is on the way.

The half hearted attempt at movie romance turned triangle seems forced.

Also in no world do I believe that Austin Butler or Brolin for that matter can kick Dave Bautista's arse.


The other was Emilia Perez, which quite honestly could not have been a more different type of film. I liked it more than I thought I would. Zoe Saldana's awards are well deserved. Generally, I am not a musical fan, but this kept me interested.

Definitely, a unique story. Mild thumbs up.
 

Ope3 said:
In an effort to see all the Best Picture Nominees, I saw two films I otherwise would have likely passed on.

Dune 2.

Actually I hadn't seen Dune 1 either, so I watched that earlier in the week. These are both well executed films with extraordinary casts. Saying that...I just don't get it. The plot is extremely confusing and convoluted, and I just can't keep up nor ever really cared to.

Dune 1 everyone appears to be in either in need of a nap or in a zombielike trance. Apparently it has something to do with SPICE. Dune 2 a few characters seemed to have a pulse. SPOILER ALERT if you give a rip, when the Josh Brolin character re-appeared it got mildly interesting. The ending was interesting, but after 5 hours between the 2 volumes not much of a payoff. Of course another volume is on the way.

The half hearted attempt at movie romance turned triangle seems forced.

Also in no world do I believe that Austin Butler or Brolin for that matter can kick Dave Bautista's arse.


The other was Emilia Perez, which quite honestly could not have been a more different type of film. I liked it more than I thought I would. Zoe Saldana's awards are well deserved. Generally, I am not a musical fan, but this kept me interested.

Definitely, a unique story. Mild thumbs up.
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both of the dune films are quite poor imo. cinematically and costume wise, gorgeous. execution in telling the story, very poor. its the problem when you have a story with so many little plot lines that are integral to understanding the story, its a struggle to try to convey it in cinema without it being egregiously long and full of long soliloquys explaining things that no real person would ever go into because the characters in the movie would already know these things. probably would've been much much better as a show as GoT was as the run time is too short for a book of this density. a lot feels unfinished because it is in the book as well (it's why there are a bunch of sequels), but overall I don't understand why it was up for awards other than that the costumes are pretty and people like Chalamet
 

upnorthkid said:
both of the dune films are quite poor imo. cinematically and costume wise, gorgeous. execution in telling the story, very poor. its the problem when you have a story with so many little plot lines that are integral to understanding the story, its a struggle to try to convey it in cinema without it being egregiously long and full of long soliloquys explaining things that no real person would ever go into because the characters in the movie would already know these things. probably would've been much much better as a show as GoT was as the run time is too short for a book of this density. a lot feels unfinished because it is in the book as well (it's why there are a bunch of sequels), but overall I don't understand why it was up for awards other than that the costumes are pretty and people like Chalamet
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I will also give credit to Dune for the Set Design, Costumes and Special/Visual EFX.

It won the Oscar for the last one, and was nominated for the others. I'll buy those accolades, even though there's no movie good enough in only those respects to hold my attention for nearly 3 hrs.
 

Watched most of Sean Baker's movies. He's really good with the mumblecore genre.
Tangerine is probably my favorite. A day in the life of a street walker in LA. Think it was shot with iphones.
Anora, next favorite. Everyone, of course, knows this one.
Take Out probably comes in third. Might be recency bias because just watched it. Grueling day in the life of a Chinese immigrant in New York City.
Prince of Broadway, another New York City setting about a guy selling counterfeit clothes and gets a baby dumped on him.
Starlet is about a woman in porn. The ending just didn't do it for me.
The Florida Project had big name Willem DaFoe in it. DaFoe is great as is the main character, a woman with a child trying to make money by doing pretty much anything she can. Living in the motel run by Willem. Lacked a good ending.
Red Rocket, another porn star, this time a male, who returns home. Once again, the ending left something to be desired. Brittany Rodriquez, who was in Anora, is also in this one.
Think Karren Karagulian, who had a major role in Anora, was in at least 5 of the films.
 

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