Movie Thread

[ab_grp]

I looked back through the thread and just saw a mention of this movie opening in theaters, but no reviews.  So, we watched Bullet Train last night.  It was one of the most enjoyable movies I have seen in ages.  The action centers on a Japanese bullet train carrying several assassins all with various goals that may or may not be intertwined.  Brad Pitt was probably the most well known actor, but I think he was outshined by some of the supporting actors.  The feel sort of reminded me of a cross between Guy Ritchie, Quentin Tarantino, and Rian Johnson.  The actual director, David Leitch, is not one whose name I know off the top of my head, but I can definitely see the connection to other movies that he has acted in, directed, or produced, including Deadpool 2, John Wick 1-4, Nobody.  Bullet Train was action-filled and hilarious at times, and it was easy to get invested in some of the characters.  It was fun from start to finish (and beyond).  We'd definitely watch this one again.  I'm really surprised I hadn't heard more about this one (I really hadn't heard much of anything about it), so I'm glad my husband mentioned it as a possibility recently!

[Hegemony]

I saw Bullet Train a while ago. By the end it was pushing the bounds even of movie believability, but I agree that along the way it was novel and entertaining.

[ciao_yall]

I watched Everything Everywhere All At Once. Kind of a trip, but now I feel very up on the cultural zeitgeist.

[ab_grp]

I don't think I saw any mentions of The Menu (Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, ...) here.  We watched it last night, and I really had no idea what it was about in advance.  It was much darker than I thought it would be! I don't want to give too much away.  As the IMDB synopsis indicates, the story involves a small group of diners who are ferried to an island for an extravagant dinner at an elite and pricey restaurant with a chef who has some issues.  There are plenty of similarities between this restaurant and some real-world restaurants with chefs with egos and who have been accused of poor treatment of staff and so forth.  The movie was pretty intriguing from the start, partially because I did not know where it was going, and it kept my attention throughout as it went in a lot of directions that I didn't expect.  From some of the audience reviews, it seems that some felt it held promise but did not deliver.  I disagree with that.  It pretty much ran the gamut from funny to sad to shocking to horrifying and included some interesting little details that I'm still thinking about.  I don't think it was a perfect movie in any sense, but I'd watch it again sometime in the future.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I don't think I saw any mentions of The Menu (Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, ...) here.  We watched it last night, and I really had no idea what it was about in advance.  It was much darker than I thought it would be! I don't want to give too much away.  As the IMDB synopsis indicates, the story involves a small group of diners who are ferried to an island for an extravagant dinner at an elite and pricey restaurant with a chef who has some issues.  There are plenty of similarities between this restaurant and some real-world restaurants with chefs with egos and who have been accused of poor treatment of staff and so forth.  The movie was pretty intriguing from the start, partially because I did not know where it was going, and it kept my attention throughout as it went in a lot of directions that I didn't expect.  From some of the audience reviews, it seems that some felt it held promise but did not deliver.  I disagree with that.  It pretty much ran the gamut from funny to sad to shocking to horrifying and included some interesting little details that I'm still thinking about.  I don't think it was a perfect movie in any sense, but I'd watch it again sometime in the future.

I agree with this assessment and, like you, I enjoyed the film overall. I also got a kick out of the commentary on the pretentiousness of high end foodie culture.

[ab_grp]

I don't think I saw any mentions of The Menu (Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, ...) here.  We watched it last night, and I really had no idea what it was about in advance.  It was much darker than I thought it would be! I don't want to give too much away.  As the IMDB synopsis indicates, the story involves a small group of diners who are ferried to an island for an extravagant dinner at an elite and pricey restaurant with a chef who has some issues.  There are plenty of similarities between this restaurant and some real-world restaurants with chefs with egos and who have been accused of poor treatment of staff and so forth.  The movie was pretty intriguing from the start, partially because I did not know where it was going, and it kept my attention throughout as it went in a lot of directions that I didn't expect.  From some of the audience reviews, it seems that some felt it held promise but did not deliver.  I disagree with that.  It pretty much ran the gamut from funny to sad to shocking to horrifying and included some interesting little details that I'm still thinking about.  I don't think it was a perfect movie in any sense, but I'd watch it again sometime in the future.

I agree with this assessment and, like you, I enjoyed the film overall. I also got a kick out of the commentary on the pretentiousness of high end foodie culture.

Yes! The commentary in general and as it interacted with the plot! Good stuff.

[Hegemony]

Oh yes, I watched The Menu too. At a certain point I thought it went over the top.

[spork]

This discussion has reminded me of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, which I saw in a theater while in college. Great movie.

[statsgeek]

Excited to see an advance screening of Are You There G-d, It's Me Margaret this evening.  Not only am I a huge Judy Blume fan, it was partially filmed in a location I know well and I may know some folks in the background shots! 

[ab_grp]

We've watched a couple more movies to report on.

The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared: I had read the book and also listened to the audiobook.  There is some discussion of it on the reading thread, but the title is self-explanatory.  He goes off on somewhat of an adventure, and in the course of the book and movie lots of past adventures of his are woven in.  Some have likened it conceptually to Forrest Gump.    The movie was adorable and did its best within the time limit to include as much of the story as possible, but of course much was left out.  There are characters who never appeared and others who I wish had been included more, and some story lines had been changed.  Much of the movie is in languages other than English, and although the subtitles were fine (and we are used to watching everything with subtitles regardless of language), at times I wondered if there were some more comical nuances we were missing.  In other words, it seemed that the actors were saying something in a funny way, but we couldn't really tell because the order of words in the different languages is different, so the emphasis differed between the word being said and the subtitled word (e.g., the last word in the sentence might differ there).  I'm not sure I explained that well.  Good job by the actors, and the whole thing was cute as ever.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal...): This was another strange movie, and one that I am not sure I ever felt like I got my head around.  Basically, Nicolas Cage plays a fictionalized version of himself.  He is running out of money and reluctantly takes a $$$ job to celebritize at a birthday party in Spain for an olive grower.  Meanwhile, nefarious deeds are afoot, some a government spy agency is involved, and it's also all very meta.  I will say that I wanted to like it more than I did.  I had a strange sensation several times of feeling like my laughter was cut short? Certain parts were very funny, but they seemed to end too quickly to really pay off, or something.  There was good commentary on the movie-making business sprinkled here and there, and Cage and Pascal were fun to watch together.  But I feel like it just didn't come together for me as much as some other zany movies have.  I'd watch it again (maybe pick up some details I missed?), but I wouldn't rush to do so.

[ab_grp]

We watched Encanto (Disney) the other night.  The story focuses on a magical house and family (blessed with magic as a miracle).  Each family member has their own unique "gift" that they receive from the house on their 5th birthday.  Or, that's the way it's supposed to go.  Things are not always as magic as they seem.  I guess that I'm not the primary target audience as an adult, but I thought it was pretty cute overall.  I was a little surprised at how much emotion it dredged up.  One thing I noticed was that most Disney movies have a clear villain who's easy to root against.  In this one, it's so much family dysfunction that's the really bad stuff.  Unfortunately, I'm sure it probably resonates with many adults besides me.  If it happened to be on or someone I was with wanted to watch it I might watch it again, but I'd probably not put it on my re-watch list otherwise.  The animation and music are very good, but I am still so mad at one of the characters! I was grousing about this character to my husband while we were out on a walk today, and after a bit of a rant I realized and mentioned to him that anyone overhearing would probably never guess that the subject of my diatribe was an animated character in a Disney movie that I watched several nights ago!

[Larimar]

I liked Encanto too. The music was fun, and the Colombian dancing was cool. I also liked how deeply they delved into the characters - some of them, anyway. And the scene in which little Antonio is playing with the animals was adorable. If I were in Mirabel's place, however, I might have wanted to say to them all, "I am clearly not valued or wanted here. I'm leaving!"

Just out of curiosity, which character were you mad at, ab_grp? (You don't have to answer if you don't want to.)

[ab_grp]

I liked Encanto too. The music was fun, and the Colombian dancing was cool. I also liked how deeply they delved into the characters - some of them, anyway. And the scene in which little Antonio is playing with the animals was adorable. If I were in Mirabel's place, however, I might have wanted to say to them all, "I am clearly not valued or wanted here. I'm leaving!"

Just out of curiosity, which character were you mad at, ab_grp? (You don't have to answer if you don't want to.)

I was afraid it was kind of a spoiler, but being Disney not really, so it was abuela Alma.  Argh I hated that woman! Watching how Mirabel was treated and finding out how the other kids felt as well... ugh.  I know they tried to give an explanation for that toward the end, but I did not really find it satisfying.  There were something like 166 pieces of trivia about the movie in IMDB (which is a heck of a lot compared to other movies) that talked about so much symbolism and little details I missed.  One thing that just got to me was the idea that the other kids' doors all have them as grown up in their roles supporting the family and village because Alma led them to their doors and that's what she expected from them, but Antonio's has him as a happy little kid because Mirabel is the one who accompanied him.  I don't know if that's true, or maybe the doors change as characters age, so Antonio's would as well as time went on, but it made sense to me.  I really enjoyed learning more about some of the characters too! And the music and dancing were so fun.  But I was really shocked at how badly Mirabel was treated.  I would have been fine if Alma peaced out at the end and the others got to have their happy lives with whatever magic was or was not there.   Maybe casita could have eaten her or something.  ;-) I'm sure my reaction to her was probably a bit strong.  I am not sure what it was that really raises my hackles about her.

[Larimar]

Yeah, how Mirabel was treated both by Abuela Alma and some of the townspeople at the beginning of the film I thought was pretty shabby too. That's why I said if I were in Mirabel's place I might have left. There was also how everyone treated Tio Bruno and pushed him into going into hiding. Casita was on Mirabel's and Bruno's side though, encouraging Mirabel and sheltering Bruno; at least I think so. In any case, I was glad for the movie's happy ending. I wasn't surprised that it had one though.

[ab_grp]

Now that you mention it, Mirabel leaving probably would have made the most Disney sense.  Rather than let the treatment drag on (IMO), show a few examples, and let her head off on her own journey.  Maybe with Bruno! Or run into him out in the world! And they can still come back and save Casita.  I agree Casita was on Mirabel's and Bruno's side and was suggesting that it eat Abuela Alma.  Ha! I guess I'm okay with her somewhat redeeming herself, but I wasn't really rooting for a happy ending for her.

We ventured into Disney territory again last night with Brave since we had recently run across that tale elsewhere.  Now, this one I thought was cute.  It still had family drama, but it wasn't as terrible IMO, and there were lots of happy and funny parts.  It probably followed a more typical Disney formula.  This story focuses on Merida, a princess who doesn't really want to princess or to be forced into marriage to unite clans and just wants to be out and about enjoying her archery.  Mom does not agree with this, and this difference of opinion increases the rift between them that kicks the story into action.  I thought the story was sweet and was drawn in by the action as well.  I don't think the music, dancing, and other background beauty really compare to Encanto, but I enjoyed this movie more.