June 2017 Movie Preview

sorry to hear your blog isn't getting the traction you were hoping for.
don't know how many other ppl like me read and enjoy it regularly without interacting with it in anyway but there is at least one person out there who enjoys it and gives you zero feedback on the actual blog

hopefully you cut back on the music and keep up with the film reviews.

cheers.

+1 I read on a semi-regular basis, mainly through the links ITT, but do enjoy the reviews

I am hoping somewhere here can help.

I want to watch/rent movie xyz on demand. What app or service am I looking for? The point being Netflix never has what I want to watch. Is the local video store the only choice?

i watched several scary movies since i last posted in this thread...they don't work anymore

What do you want to watch?

I can't recommend enough filmstruck/criterion web access... 99bucks a year.

There is still local video stores?

+2. Quality stuff. Thanks

amazon
vudu
iTunes

all offer digital movies to rent and purchase.

all can be utilized via laptop, roku, appletv, firestick or similar streaming media device.

Appreciate the feedback guys. I don't expect my blog to be a megahit or anything but more traffic would be nice. The real problem is how much time I spend writing it when playing poker is my job. All that time I spend writing I could spend getting better at poker. It's one thing to spend 15-20 minutes writing a quick movie review, but that June preview took me HOURS to write... and I plan do it for Netflix and Music too... every month? LOL. Just not a wise use of my time IMO.

I would def just pick one subject and focus on that.
I obv vote for movies but choose whichever you're most passionate about be it movies, TV, music whatever.

obv if the time commitment is more than you feel is worthwhile than scrap it, but u also aren't required to put out monthly content you can publish reviews whenever you feel like it and have spare time.

+3 I really enjoy your blog as well. I read pretty much every time you post a link itt

Is it not enjoyable to write? You should enjoy the writing itself for it to be worth it. Will try to check it out more regularly have bookmarked.

It is enjoyable to write... to a degree... sometimes I feel like I'm creating unnecessary chores for myself. And I have a natural inclination to be want to be as thorough as possible and it turns little projects - like my monthly previews - into big projects. There is just no need for me to research every little aspect of an upcoming film and dig into Box Office Mojo for me to inform people of what's coming out.

I'm not a professional critic so it's silly of me to try and act like one.

The point is to spend a few minutes talking about whatever it is I'm talking about, say whether or not I liked it, and then share it with anyone that cares. I just need to get back to that instead of spending hours on blog posts.

Although I do plan to continue my incredibly thorough examination of hip-hop artists. That is like a once a month thing that I actually really do enjoy digging into.

Speaking of box office, is anyone here playing Fantasy Movie League? Essentially daily fantasy sports style but for the weekend box office.

Ok - ty


Usually popular movies I missed 1~5 years ago in the theatre. Sometimes older stuff that comes up ITT.

the assassination of jesse james...

10/10. i'm prob slightly biased bc i'm from kc and he lived like 10 mins from my childhood home but i think this is basically a perfect movie what can i say. i mean he is a piece of **** and should not be lionized as a robin hood figure but goddamn the amount of acting talent in this movie is second to none. so goddamn good on HBOO right now.i if anything in todays day and age it has too manyy white male characters or whatever bs but goddamn the acting can't be topped

alien cov 7/10- i liked this movie a lot. as many have said it is sort of a hybrid of all the previous movies in terms of action/sci fi/philosophical questions/etc. i will say the aliens in this were scary as **** compared to some of the past. solid movie if not exactly groundbreaking

handmaiden 2nd time watching this- so good, wont spoil it but if you have not watched this yet you absolutey need too. on amazon instant. this and the wailing were easily top 5 movies for me last year
mike and dave need wedding dates- not a bad comedy. most comedies suck it is what it is this was watchable. zach effron and workaholics guy play same characters as they always do but it had a few laughs. didn't suck which means it is better than most comedies
king arthur 3d- honestly was relatively entertaining for first 45 mins then i fell asleep despite buyin a large coffee and woke up wtih like 10 mins left. wasn't as bad as i expected i typically hate charlie hunnan (still haven't seen the new movie lost cizy of z tho)
i just rent through amazon now. i had an amazing rental store a couple blocks away that i could walk to with every movie ever right next to the indie theater that is still there but it changed to a record store recently....feels bad man

Alien: Covenant

I am in the minority who felt that Prometheus was one of the greatest movies I've ever watched. The themes brought up in the movie about our place in the universe, and our makers, was expertly crafted, and to put that into a horror movie where there's a C-section alien baby is pretty amazing. On top of that, Michael Fassbender gave one of the greatest performances of his career as the android who we aren't quite sure what his motivations are throughout.

In Covenant, a lot of the open ended questions from Prometheus get answered, and we get a bridge between Prometheus and the original Alien. It is a by the numbers horror movie that, while done well, did not have the same impact that some of the other Alien movies have had on me.

We start with the spaceship Covenant, travelling to it's new destination with a few crew members, a bunch of colonists in hibernation, and one Android that looks like David (Fassbender's android from Prometheus) but has a completely different accent and personality, named Walter.

Disaster strikes, crew members are lost (including the captain who is played by a very famous actor who is uncredited as far as I could tell), and lo and behold, there's another planet that's much closer that may be suitable for colonization. Of course what follows is many dumb decisions people make in horror movies...Let's go to that planet, walk around with cigarettes in our mouths, no helmets on, and take a piss wherever we please, and expect nothing bad to happen.

Well... the movie is called Alien, so....bad things happen, and the crew members start getting dispatched one by one in fairly clever and gruesome ways. Michael Fassbender plays two roles in this movie as the new and old android, and there's some fairly good repartee between the two dueling androids throughout.

In the prequel, we are unclear of David's motivations throughout, and that added so much to my enjoyment of his character. In this movie, there is no doubt what his intentions are, and that left me a little disappointed. We know who the good guys and who the bad guys are, and it's really a matter of just killing or getting away from the bad guys.

Overall an enjoyable experience that if you are a fan of the series, is a must see.

Tarantula A scientist develops a concoction that makes living things grow big. Except for people - they just look like monsters and die. The tarantula gets really really big and starts eating cows and people. Also featured are a giant rat and giant guinea pig that get loose but nobody seems to notice.

Fun watch

Return of the Fly The son of the guy that turned into a fly picks up where dad left off. Unfortunately a n'er-do-well wants to cash in on the technology and wreaks havoc. Interesting that this, too, features a giant guinea pig that nobody seems to care much about. A smaller guinea pig with man hands gets squished, though.

Also a fun watch.

I agree that you need to be careful about the content you produce and whether you spend countless hours creating content that does not translate to a value for your audience.

However, I would also say that if you intend to one day write this kind of content as a career, you should continue to perform this research and write this content. It will prepare you for the job you want in case you ever get it. I performed research for years that no sane layman would ever care about, but it played a vital part in my later transition into a company that utilizes that research for entertainment acquisition and development.

For example, your research into every little detail and Box Office Mojo might not have much value for upcoming films, but it would be a fascinating retro-analysis for big releases and sleeper hits, like a long form longitudinal perspective on the life (and perhaps death) of movies no one expected to flop/succeed. What went wrong/right? What can we learn from this? That has an insider perspective that's valuable to many film aficionados as well as industry professionals trying to make sense of all of this information.

I have something to add about Alien but I don't know how to do spoiler code.

Busto, I have no desire to turn writing into a career at this point in my life.

My wife and I just saw Paris Can Wait, starring Diane Lane and Arnaud Viard, with Alec Baldwin in support. Now before I go on, let me just say that if you are not presently in a relationship and/or you are under 45, just skip the rest of my review and move on, because this movie is not for you.

This is your basic romcom/chick flick/date movie. Lane is married to Baldwin, a successful movie producer who is more involved and interested in his work than his marriage. They are in Cannes and then are supposed to fly to Paris, but he gets called away to Budapest to check on another of his productions. Due to an ear infection, Lane can't travel with him, so his French business partner Viard offers to drive Lane to Paris the next day. The rest of the movie is basically a cook's tour and travelogue of France as they make their way from Cannes to Paris (and Arnaud tries to make Diane), stopping along the away to take in the sites and sounds of various restaurants, markets, cities, and the French countryside.

There's really not much to the story itself - - -it's the usual will they or won't they, with a cute little ending - - - but the real star is France itself. If you haven't wanted to travel to France before, you may after seeing this movie.

Now I will warn you that this movie has received mixed reviews with some really horrible reviews from users on IMDB; people seem to either love or absolutely hate it. I, myself, really enjoyed the movie and wouldn't mind seeing it a second time. But that can be explained as follows:

1. I'm in love with Diane Lane and have been for quite some time.
2. My wife and I love France to the point where you might call us francophiles.
3. We just returned home from a trip to Paris a couple of days ago so France is still in the forefront of our thoughts.
4. We both usually enjoy romantic comedies. (Going back through the decades, some of our favorite movies include Barefoot in the Park, The Goodbye Girl, Annie Hall, When Harry Met Sally, Forget Paris, and Must Love Dogs.)

5. Did I mention I love Diane Lane?


ETA: For those who think they may be interested in seeing the movie, here's the trailer:

Concerning Alien: Covenant