Weekend at Bernie's (Blu-Ray) - A solid dumb '80s comedy, in many ways a capstone on the '80s. Celebrates and is flimsily critical of what we think of as 1980s excess/capitalism. First hour is pretty strong, then nearly overstays its welcome and could stand to lose 10-15 minutes. You get some nice '80s NYC as well as a gorgeous "Hampton Island" beach house to enjoy.

*What's unfortunate here?* Sexism of course, male gaze, characters getting "knocked out" for extended periods of time as if that's no big thing (in reality it's severe brain damage or death, find a better plot device)

*Stuff you didn't notice as a kid.* The coke use in PG-13.

*What should have been cut?* One too many roundtrips from the house in the second half. Cut the groundskeeper and plumber out completely (this solves the head injury problem). Otherwise, gets to the point fairly admirably with the insurance fraud early on.

*How many pages of a screenplay for Weekend at Bernie's III has BJ written?* About 45.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition or a feminist critique of Weekend at Bernie's 28 years after its release.

^I lol'ed...

I decided to re-visit The Village after it was recently talked up in here. The only thing I remembered is that I didn't like it much.

I guess I wanted it to be horror the first time, and it certainly wasn't that, thus the disappointment. This time I just enjoyed it for what it was, a nicely put together fairy tale. I don't have much respect for M Night's body of work so I was pleasantly surprised by this little piece of art.


William Hurt was excellent. I found his speech to the elders particularly good, and moving:




and then I read it and it doesn't seem like anything special, more credit to him.


eta- I read it a couple more times, and heh, it is a pretty good of piece of writing. Still, he really nailed it.

Im sorry... Lucius is the best part of that story.

Phoenix's magnificent portrayal of a "villager" stepping into enlightenment as he comes of age all the while still having one tenuous foot in the "village" mythos is a perfect portrayal of modern cultures separation between modernity and those cultures that are still guided by deity based ideology.

Even the fact that the stories motivating factor being "Medicine" as opposed to one of faith is in fact enlightening or enlightenment.

Wat

Up in Smoke is solid.

It has possibly the greatest one scene repartee between the two main characters ever.

As a whole movie,it's not very good.

As a series of connected bits of comedy,it's up there with Airplane!

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I'm currently watching Five Came Back on Netflix. It's a documentary series about the Hollywood directors that stepped into the war theatre to get footage and the overall effect of Hollywood on the war. It's excellent, I think everyone here would enjoy it. 5/5 stars, new Netflix rating system be damned.

Lol... I get it!



I'll write something a little more in depth about the village narrative... after I contact my dealer.

For those that haven't done so, film struck/criterion continue to add new and amazingly great content. Check it out if you get the oppertunity.

I'm late to the party here, but Hellboy was a lot of fun.

rip powers boothe.

netflix beyond the gate (i think is the title) ..scary movie right, so i woke up last night in the middle (of the night)...turned it on, got the creeps when the first scary sound in the movie occurred exactly at the same time one of my roomates fell or dropped something in the kitchen...it was cahwensidence, i think

neat movie though...nothing special.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Plot / story line made no sense, yet movie was fun to watch and held my interest.

Trigger Warning: 70's & 80's music.

Trigger Warning: Sylvester Stallone. (If you have the slightest ham sensitivity, you may want to give this one a pass.)

Trigger Warning: Kurt Russell.

Trigger Warning: David Hasselhoff.


On the bright side: Tatara Samurai is coming!?

Those trigger warnings are all things that made the movie.

Alien Covenant for me in IMAX in 7 hours. Excited!

Got my iMax for tomorrow... no spoilers like everyone dies except for the female lead and david.

The Girl with all the Gifts:

They call the zombies "Hungaries" lol
They can run at full speed.
You turn in less than 60 seconds.

When they are "resting" or whatever and standing around asleep you can walk among them quietly undisturbed. Luckily if you make noise they only wake up 1 at a time even there is 100 of them in a tight area, so you can easily kill them. LMAO.

This movie is pretty silly IMO.

IMAX Alien on Saturday....

Inland Empire (theater, 35mm) - Might be the best film of the 21st century, and the public tide will shift more and more towards it as time goes on. An incredible experience in the theater.

I know people who consider it unrelentingly dark and horrifying and sad, but I don't know that that's the case. It's also in parts a celebration of life, or at least a celebration of film.

If you have a take that's like "none of it makes sense" idk where you get that from; similar to Mulholland Dr., the first 90 minutes plus are largely a more traditional narrative. While I have not quite "figured it out" yet, I'm pretty sure Lynch is telling an actual logical story here. If he isn't, I don't care, and I don't quite know why people think anything that's a moving picture needs to tell a logical linear story, unlike any other art form.

I have no use whatsoever for the people who think that Lynch has gone off the deep end (holding up this film as an example) and can no longer make good work.

Alien: Covenant

I'm a big Alien canon fan so I was going to enjoy this regardless.

Covenant is kind of a mashup of elements of Alien, Aliens and Prometheus. It was less theme-y and abstract than Prometheus. It was less horror than Alien. It was less action than Aliens. But it had some soul of each one of them in it.

There were elements of Covenant that definitely beat the viewers over the head with... I don't know if any of the backlash over Prometheus contributed to that but some of it was spoon fed. Things were explained (with a hefty suspense of disbelief, of course) and that's that. In that way I actually preferred Prometheus, it asked the bigger questions without really answering them. Covenant pretty much tells you the answers, but it carries the torch for the same themes Prometheus brought up.

All said though I had fun and it was gory and scary and like any Scott film it just looks good on a big screen. Fassbender and Waterston lead the way. And there's lots of room left for more in between Covenant and Alien.

3/5

Spoilers:

I hate spoon fed... I really do. It leaves no room for conceptual interpretion

Watched a couple of documentaries

Brother's Keeper Follows the pre-trial and trial of a man accused of murdering one of his brothers. The brothers (4) live together on a farm in central NY. The brothers are all elderly, uneducated and have lived on the same farm their entire lives. Although they aren't completely isolated from civilization, they definitely live in a different world.

I thought this was somewhat interesting but not a top tier documentary. I enjoyed the exposition of the way of life of the brothers and the community. But, the defense lawyer and the coroner were the most interesting characters, imo. I think the actual story just wasn't compelling enough to make this top notch.

If you are squeamish, close your eyes when you see a pig.

Life Itself Moving documentary about the life of film critic, Roger Ebert.

He knew how to live, and he knew how to die. What an inspiration. His wife is/was an extraordinary person as well.

I loved every single minute of this film.