The Fora: A Higher Education Community

We added the Ryan Reynolds/Will Ferrell take on 'A Christmas Carol' Spirited to our holiday moving lineup this year and it was a fun, if occasionally raunchy, romp.  A fun take on the whole redemption at Christmas time trope.  I recommend it to anyone who enjoys the season and doesn't take it all too seriously.

We also love the Muppets version, if that gives any of you a calibration mark.

I have a date tonight — she asked me to make her my favorite meal and then she's going to show me her favorite movie: "Big Fish."

Quote from: RatGuy on December 18, 2023, 12:17:27 PMI have a date tonight — she asked me to make her my favorite meal and then she's going to show me her favorite movie: "Big Fish."

I like this movie a lot - just thinking about it makes me want to call my dad just to say I love him. Hope you enjoy it!

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on December 18, 2023, 09:52:54 AM

Quote from: ab_grp on December 18, 2023, 08:32:48 AMSun_Worshiper, I was impressed with Winter's Bone and with Jennifer Lawrence's performance in it when I first saw it pre-Hunger Games, and it held up years later.  Especially given that it was her first major role! Tough material, and she handled it and portrayed the bleakness and complexity very well.


Thanks, Wahoo! That is quite an analysis and a very interesting read.  Lots to think about! Maybe it's a small point, but I was wondering about the two interview scenes and whether they are meant to be a parallel, and what that means if so.  It seems as though they are, but I am not sure that I have figured out exactly what they were implying.  Or, I might be reading too much into that aspect.  And I was focused more on the irony (?) of her finally making her move at what must have been one of the worst times to do so, and why.  I think I fail to see beneath the surface and to understand the context a lot of times when I watch movies, so I always appreciate hearing other interpretations and background info.

I think the interview scenes were partly just expository----we learn that June was once a prominent author in the first interview, and then we find out that she has returned to prominence in her second interview.  The form an envelope for the plot.  But they are also a sign of the times----one used to see just those sort of static interview formats with a slightly arrogant, punctilious host, usually an older white male (think Charlie Rose before the scandal), on TV all the time.  And they serve to show how June is willing to milk her family's psychological problems as fodder for her novels: she is a creation of the Confessional moment in literature, rightly or wrongly.

And sure, the script has a lot of irony in it.  It's a good script in that June is given all sorts of timelines to keep from literally going insane----she's out of money (she gives her last $50 to Freddie), her agent is no longer taking her calls, her agoraphobia is crippling her, her family have given up on her, and she is facing homelessness and ruination unless she gets her manuscript out into the world.  Her move coincides with the infamous NYC blackout of '77 and its riots.  When June mistakes one African-American man for Freddie and runs to his aid (you got that June, despite her good-nature and real humanity, cannot tell one black man from another during a moment of crisis) she is forced out of her apartment...and this saves her life.  The things holding her down are broken.  That's several levels of irony right there.

You know, I have never seen Winter's Bone.  Gotta see it, I guess.

Those are good points about the roles of the interviews.  I was probably thinking too hard about the idea that in the first book she makes her dad the basis for the character, and that has consequences for him.  In the new book, it seems likely that she is the basis for the character, and she is questioned about it but just smiles.  I wasn't sure how to interpret the smile.  As in yes she was the character, but now she isn't? Or maybe she never really was.  I think the latter occurred to me as an improbable possibility because a reviewer said there was some sort of twist?! I was a little surprised that some reviewers couldn't sympathize with her plight.  I could definitely see how she could have grown more and more isolated over time.  Guess I should read up more on what was going on at that time in the city.

I have watched two other movies that I forgot to mention here, I guess because I watched them by myself on and off over a couple days.  The better one was Exmas, in which a woman has broken off her engagement to a workaholic guy, and the guy's family still really likes her.  Since he will be working and can't come for Christmas, they decide to invite her and not tell him, and then he decides to surprise them and shows up.  Hilarity ensues.  Well, it was muted hilarity, but I enjoyed the movie and thought they stuck the landing well (something I don't often find in these kinds of movies).  I'm glad I watched it when it came out and wasn't influenced by the mediocre ratings and reviews.  I would recommend it if you are looking for something fun. 

One I would not recommend is Are You Here, which somehow has a cast of very good comedic actors and is labeled a comedy (and drama, to be fair) but was not at all funny.  I could tell there were scenes that were supposed to be funny, but I did not laugh once.  And I did not like the characters.  This one is about a "man-child" (per IMDB) and his bestie, an immature cretin who is somehow gainfully employed.  Man-child's dad dies, and of course he gets more than his uptight sister, and bestie is trying to hold man-child together, and then there's the really young and lovely granola step-mom who is hated by some of the aforementioned and sexually attractive to the rest of them.  This cast features Owen Wilson, Zach Galafianakis, and Amy Poehler, and they were wasted in it, in my opinion.  I feel like the movie was trying to do or be too many things.  There was some focus on issues of mental health, but it was all just a mess.  This one also had miserable ratings and reviews, and I should have listened! But I thought it would just be an amusing comedy if nothing else.  No.  Just goes to show you can't tell. 

Quote from: ab_grp on December 20, 2023, 04:06:21 PMThose are good points about the roles of the interviews.  I was probably thinking too hard about the idea that in the first book she makes her dad the basis for the character, and that has consequences for him.  In the new book, it seems likely that she is the basis for the character, and she is questioned about it but just smiles.  I wasn't sure how to interpret the smile.  As in yes she was the character, but now she isn't? Or maybe she never really was.  I think the latter occurred to me as an improbable possibility because a reviewer said there was some sort of twist?! I was a little surprised that some reviewers couldn't sympathize with her plight.  I could definitely see how she could have grown more and more isolated over time.  Guess I should read up more on what was going on at that time in the city.

That is an excellent reading of the interview clips in The Wolf Hour.  And this is why I think it is such an excellent piece of film literature----it takes a lot of close observation and unpacking, and there is a ton of meaning packed into the tight film formula.  Glad you watched it.

We haven't even mentioned the metaphysical possibility that the city itself was the one pressing her door buzzer and frightening her into action----a weird and meaningful notion.

Wahoo, thanks again for recommending the movie, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on it! Definitely interesting possibilities!

First, a question that I also posted over on TV thread:

QuoteDoes anyone watch [movies] on Amazon Prime? We have been having trouble with a delay or non-sync between audio and visual, and googling has not led to any solutions that worked.  When we watch on our computers or tablet, no problem.  When we watch on our main Toshiba TV (which is about 7 yrs old) or our little Fire TV (which is an Amazon product!), whether we watch through Roku, a multiformat player, or directly, no luck.  If we pause the show and return to it, it re-syncs, but that is kind of a pain to do throughout.  I have tried casting to the TV, and so has my husband, but it keeps saying something about only purchased material can be casted (so not the free stuff?), which seems odd.  Next we will try plugging the actual ethernet cable directly to the Fire TV (doesn't seem to do anything with the Toshiba), but I use that as a secondary monitor and don't really want to have to keep moving it back and forth (first-world problems).  I figure we must be missing something obvious, because everyone can't be just watching on their computers, and I don't see as much complaining as I would expect to see.  I am going to cross-post this over to the movies thread but thought I would check here as well.  Thanks for any ideas!

Now, reviews.  While my husband was off, we watched movies every night.  Mission Impossible: Fallout was one of the better ones, but we agreed that the previous one (Rogue Nation) was still the best so far.  The Muppet Christmas Carol is a classic, the role of a lifetime for Michael Caine.  My husband hadn't seen it, and I hadn't seen it in a while.  Love Actually is always a favorite around Christmas.  Notting Hill has also been a while for both of us, and it was less rom-com and more well-done rom-dram than we recalled.  Julia Roberts's character is awful, though.  For NYE we had a doubleheader of Casablanca (way more intriguing and resonated more than last time, and my husband had not seen it!) and The Holiday, another favorite for this time of the year.  Oh yes, and Molly's Game, which was a really fast-paced and exciting movie, based on a true story of a former competitive skier who ended up running some major $$$ poker games filled with celebs and so forth, got in trouble, etc.  I really enjoyed it.  And I forgot How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which I thought had a fun premise: she writes a how-to column for Composure magazine, a totally made-up mag focused on beauty and fashion, and she ends up writing about this very topic.  However, there are forces working against her.  It's a fun movie, not too heavy.  She does a good job of trying to drive him away.  I had seen it before.  So, some new, some old.  Tonight is Vantage Point, which neither of us have seen (I think).

We had a Christmas-period bonanza as well. We watched:

A Christmas Story — I know some parts are dated, but it's one of those movies where you just greet each scene as an old friend.
Elf — My first time seeing it. I thought it was variable — some parts clever, some tedious. Interestingly, the (now grown up) kid from A Christmas Story is one of the elves.
Love Actually — This just gets better each time. As someone on social media remarked, if you follow it up with Die Hard, Alan Rickman gets his comeuppance for his bad behavior in Love Actually.
A Christmas Prince — This was our choice for ultra-cheesy Christmas fare, and it was even cheesier than we had reckoned. The female lead was utterly unconvincing. It was nice to see Alice Krieg, though. Researching the whole thing, I discovered that it was the latest entry in the genre of "Ruritanian romance," which led us to rewatch...
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) — a better swashbuckler has never been made. Ronald Colman! David Niven! Douglas Fairbanks Jr.! Swashes! Buckles!
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 — mostly a novelty, though there's a spectacular bit from Buster Keaton.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One — I wish they'd quit putting in plot points that require a recall of the previous movies. I do not recall the previous movies, nor do I care.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story — I love this movie.

Quote from: Hegemony on January 06, 2024, 06:10:00 AMLove Actually — This just gets better each time. As someone on social media remarked, if you follow it up with Die Hard, Alan Rickman gets his comeuppance for his bad behavior in Love Actually.

Might have to try this next time! Can't stand his character (understatement of the year).

This weekend was Vantage Point and The Lost City.  The first is an action movie about the assassination attempt on the President of the US during a meeting of world leaders in Spain.  It's told from several points of view.  It didn't take me long to catch onto what was really going on, so I'm not sure if I had seen this one (I get it and Eagle Eye mixed up... not sure which I had seen and which my grad school friend had seen, but I remember talking about them) or if it is just not super difficult to figure out.  In any case, I still thought it was pretty good for an action thriller.  There was one plot point that I was unclear about and isn't mentioned in the goofs section on IMDB, so maybe it was explained and my husband and I both missed it.  We also picked up Eagle Eye and will watch that at some point.

We managed to get The Lost City (free on Amazon Prime) to stream without sync issues on my newer Amazon Fire TV that I use as an external monitor for my laptop.  I think the secret was plugging the ethernet cable in directly, but that is not sustainable (and I need my monitor back at some point).  The movie wasn't bad, just a typical rom-com/action movie.  I thought the trailer looked promising, but it never felt very exciting.  I guess to some extent it's a la Romancing the Stone or Raiders of the Lost Ark but without the charisma.  Part of it is that I just didn't feel a romantic connection between the leads (Bullock, Tatum).  I think they could have done better to build up the characters' individual backgrounds and their shared background, and I think there are pretty easy ways to do that.  It wasn't terrible, and there were some funny moments, but it just could have done better with what it had. 

I Saw the Devil (2010, streaming on Amazon Prime)

I'm home alone this weekend, classes start Monday, and the weather outside is frightful, so what better to do then relax with a quite movie? I Saw the Devil looks interesting, so I fire it up at around 10pm last night. By around 10:10pm, I am reminded that Korean cinema is just different when it comes to utterly repugnant on-screen violence. But - global citizen, film connoisseur, and glutton for savagery that I am - I stick with it to the bitter, awful, disgusting end.

This is an excellent film that I will never watch again. I do not know a single person that I can recommend it to. But maybe some of you are as depraved as me, so...

Are you in the mood for a beautifully filmed, thematically rich, and highly visceral film? Can you stomach graphic violence that puts the Saw and Hostel movies to shame? If you answered "Yes" to both of these questions, then this is the movie for you! If you answered "No" to the second question, then stay as far away from this film as possible!

Grade: A

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on January 07, 2024, 03:31:30 PMI Saw the Devil (2010, streaming on Amazon Prime)

I'm home alone this weekend, classes start Monday, and the weather outside is frightful, so what better to do then relax with a quite movie? I Saw the Devil looks interesting, so I fire it up at around 10pm last night. By around 10:10pm, I am reminded that Korean cinema is just different when it comes to utterly repugnant on-screen violence. But - global citizen, film connoisseur, and glutton for savagery that I am - I stick with it to the bitter, awful, disgusting end.

This is an excellent film that I will never watch again. I do not know a single person that I can recommend it to. But maybe some of you are as depraved as me, so...

Are you in the mood for a beautifully filmed, thematically rich, and highly visceral film? Can you stomach graphic violence that puts the Saw and Hostel movies to shame? If you answered "Yes" to both of these questions, then this is the movie for you! If you answered "No" to the second question, then stay as far away from this film as possible!

Grade: A

Sometimes I can't take the hyperreal violence stuff...but, dang it, this is intriguing...almost a dare...

Sun_Worshiper, thanks for checking it out for us and for the honest review! I will put it on my list of possibilities but would probably have to watch alone.  Just reading the IMDB details... interesting! "In fact this movie is so violent and dark the Korean film board had to make the director recut the film and remove some of the violence."  Did you even see the full version? ;-) The ratings are pretty high for a lot of the reviews, but those are self-selected, so you never know.

ETA: Agreed with Wahoo.

Quote from: ab_grp on January 07, 2024, 06:15:32 PMSun_Worshiper, thanks for checking it out for us and for the honest review! I will put it on my list of possibilities but would probably have to watch alone.  Just reading the IMDB details... interesting! "In fact this movie is so violent and dark the Korean film board had to make the director recut the film and remove some of the violence."  Did you even see the full version? ;-) The ratings are pretty high for a lot of the reviews, but those are self-selected, so you never know.

ETA: Agreed with Wahoo.

I don't know if I saw the full version, but if this is the edited cut then I can't even imagine what they took out.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on January 07, 2024, 06:14:37 PM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on January 07, 2024, 03:31:30 PMI Saw the Devil (2010, streaming on Amazon Prime)

I'm home alone this weekend, classes start Monday, and the weather outside is frightful, so what better to do then relax with a quite movie? I Saw the Devil looks interesting, so I fire it up at around 10pm last night. By around 10:10pm, I am reminded that Korean cinema is just different when it comes to utterly repugnant on-screen violence. But - global citizen, film connoisseur, and glutton for savagery that I am - I stick with it to the bitter, awful, disgusting end.

This is an excellent film that I will never watch again. I do not know a single person that I can recommend it to. But maybe some of you are as depraved as me, so...

Are you in the mood for a beautifully filmed, thematically rich, and highly visceral film? Can you stomach graphic violence that puts the Saw and Hostel movies to shame? If you answered "Yes" to both of these questions, then this is the movie for you! If you answered "No" to the second question, then stay as far away from this film as possible!

Grade: A

Sometimes I can't take the hyperreal violence stuff...but, dang it, this is intriguing...almost a dare...

If you do happen to watch it, let us know what you think.

We watched a good variety of movies this weekend.  All were new to both of us.  Friday's was The In-Laws (1979 with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk).  Kevin Pollak mentioned how funny this movie was in his autobiography (which was very funny itself).  Arkin plays a dentist (not very mild-mannered, even at the best of times) whose daughter is marrying Falk's son.  The wedding is coming up, and Arkin's family have not met Falk yet, as he is always away on business.  The fathers end up going on a little adventure together.  I can't really describe the movie without giving much away, except to say I think it's what would be described as madcap or zany.  I think some of IMDB's tags for it are buddy comedy and farce.  Definitely an odd movie, but we enjoyed it.

Saturday's was A Star is Born (1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason).  It felt like a very long movie, even with the intermission that we fast forwarded through.  IMDB says it's 2h34, but google says 3h2, and I believe the latter.  Anyway, it follows the rise of one star and fall of another, and it was very sad at times.  I hadn't realized that Garland had addiction problems in real life and actually died at a young age from them (she's not the one in the film who has those issues).  It was kind of funny that I kept making comments throughout when I thought Garland looked like Liza Minelli, especially her eyes at certain times, or the way she spoke, or when her hair was styled a particular way.  After, my husband asked if Garland had any children.  I said yes Liza Minelli is one of them! That's why I kept remarking on the similarities (I hadn't seen her in much other than The Wizard of Oz).  Maybe he just thought I was obsessed with Liza Minelli all of a sudden.  I guess we both learned some Garland trivia.

Last night was Prospect (Sophie Thatcher, Jay Duplass, Pedro Pascal).  I'm not sure what to think of this one.  It's not much of a story, more of a short sequence of events that occurs, and there's not really any closure.  It focuses on people who prospect for gems on a some moon somewhere.  They have to deal with getting to and from the moon (space travel issues), plus the moon's environment (toxic), plus others who have their own priorities (also toxic).  It's hard to get too invested in any of the characters because it's mostly action, and they don't really explain almost anything about who anyone is or why they are acting the way they do.  On the one hand, it's kind of nice to just be plunked down in some alien environment and have to go along with the story without a lot of gratuitous detail and backstory.  It's just alien! It's sci-fi.  This is what their lives are like.  But then I wonder if they just didn't flesh out the story enough.  I don't know.  It was reasonably good, but I am not sure we will rush to watch it again soon.

The Tomorrow Man (2019, Amazon Prime)

An older man who is obsessively preparing for the collapse of civilization meets an older woman with her own issues and they strike up a romance. This is a sweet, lighthearted film with nice performances and a few laughs along the way. Nothing special, but not a bad way to spend 90 minutes.

Grade: B