Couldn’t agree more. I recently watched Rust and Bone and couldn’t stop thinking about how I had just longed for a simple story where the heroes aren’t super, the ppl and storyline are real, and the ending doesn’t “satisfy” in the way that Hollywood thinks it needs to. It’s too bad that I feel my only chances of having a viewing experience like this are if it’s foreign or small and independent.

Infinity War isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's still a long distance from a good film, filled with the flaws you'd expect from a superhero movie that is bloated in every possible way. Yet you have to give some credit to all involved for juggling this much stuff without it becoming an incoherent mess. It helps to go in with rock bottom expectations.

Robert Downey Jr's shtick has worn very thin though. Generally speaking, all the quipping and goofy jokes grew tiresome 15 movies ago. Thor: Ragnarok is the exception, a genuinely funny movie because it was directed by someone who understands that there's more to cinematic comedy than the odd sarcastic comment or slapstick moment.

Just saw a Quiet Place. Loved it. The birth scene was outstanding. I didn't love the ending but loved the movie.

Love, Simon (2018) - Closeted gay kid in high school. Starts off a little strange where he as the narrator says he's "just like everyone else" but he's a rich white kid with a stable family? Really not sure if the tongue was supposed to be in cheek.

I was afraid this would be heavy and sad. Parts of it are, but it goes down real easy with the rich suburban high school aesthetic. It's enjoyable and worth watching if you're at all in the mood for a high school melodrama and perhaps warm high school nostalgia.

Baby Driver (second time) - Not as good as the first time, the paint-by-numbers plot becomes much more of a hindrance. Then there are the tropey scenes like one nearly-rogue gang member being against our protagonist gang member for being "weird" and getting all up in his face. If Wright's doing these eye-rollingly cliche things for some purpose, I don't get it and don't care; it's lazy.

But as a fun movie that's worth watching one time, sure. An absolute must if you like car chases. I don't, but did here.

I don't think I necessarily disagree with any of this, but it's a far different point than what I responded to.

We were discussing the utility of considering aggregated film ratings and the associated reviews/analyses when forming our own assessment of a film.

And then, at least as I understood it, your above response unfairly characterized people who do so as relying on others to determine for themselves whether something is acceptable. That's almost an exact quote of what you said, but if I've somehow misunderstood your meaning, please clarify. If that is what you meant, though, I'll reiterate that I politely disagree

I find RT to be a fairly reliable barometer for whether a movie is worth checking out. Can't remember the last time a movie I enjoyed got a bad RT score; maybe I just have pedestrian tastes.

I mean the way RT ratings work, it inflates ratings. A low rating is likely a very bad movie. A high rating however, is meaningless

Details?

lots of sand...but like, on a hill.

Saw Waitress for the umpteenth time. Any time it's on, I have to watch it to the end. It a perfect pop confection of a movie. I don't understand why Keri Russell isn't a huge movie star. And I can't believe Adrienne Shelly has been dead for 12 years now.

Agreed!!! My sense from following her since the Felicity days is that she's been careful not to be too big a star so as to more easily balance her work and family life. On those terms, she's had a huge career. Two massively successful TV shows, several killer movies.

The spice must flow

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a 28 on metacritic. I wouldn't bother with the site.

Saw Infinity War this afternoon and was thoroughly entertained for 2 1/2 hours. In fact, I can't remember the last movie that I saw of that length where I didn't start looking at my watch and wondering when it would end. This isn't a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but if you go into it with the mindset that it's a comic book story with all that that entails, then I think that you, too, will enjoy it.

On a side note, by the time all the credits had been run and the obligatory post-credit scene came on, my wife and I were the only two people left in the theater. How is it possible that after 19 films over 10 years, there are still people who aren't aware that there is usually, if not always, at least one post-credit scene?

And as I am not up on all of the Marvel universe (I haven't seen any of the previous Thor, Captain America or Avenger movies, for example), I had to go online after we got home and have the very last few seconds of that post-credit scene explained to me.

My Man!

The Infinity War credits were approaching LOTR credit length. Even knowing there was a stinger I almost walked out.

I walked out before post credit scene. No long line when walking out and i just saw it on the internets day after.

Everybody's a movie critic these days! Maybe we should just eat our Kael cause it's good for us.

I walked out as well, didn't seem to miss much after watching it on YouTube.

Thinking back on the film, I am rather impressed with the amount of characters worked into it and I think that marvel studios using other movies to work towards an epic show down like this is pretty impressive, shows some insight and creativity. Even creating a mediocre movie with this many characters is quite the achievement.

I posted it months ago...

Eric Roth will pen the new script... Dennis Villenuve will direct three movies.

Release, December 2019

Lars and the real girl is such a great movie... something we need more of.

Extremely touching, supremely poignant... a narrative of coming of age for a men, the movie really couldn't be more perfect.

Not a single bullet was fired, explosion was seen or kung fu move was executed... perfect.

So, you're saying it was entirely car chases?

MSchu18, I've noticed that your taste and sensibility is somewhat in sync with mine. I'll give this Lars and the Real Girl movie another try on your sayso. I think I started it once and quit when it turned out that the real girl was a life-sized doll.

That's awesome