What is the last movie you saw? and rate it.

[Ecurb]

"Marriage Story" (Noah Baumbach's new movie) is an anti-rom-com. That is, it uses romantic comedy conventions in a movie about a divorce. The lawyers, the sidekicks, and the in-laws are all played for laughs. The divorcing couple (Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson) are more treacly.

The movie opens with each partner's written list of things they love about the other person, which turns out to be part of a mediation for the dying marriage. Driver is a New York avant-guarde theater director; Johansson is his wife and star, who may have an opportunity to act in (horrors!) a TV series out in an L.A. straight out of a Woody Allen movie. Johansson's lawyer is a grotesque (but funny) LA stereotype, and so is Johansson's mother.

The problem: as with the rom-coms the movie satirizes, the leads must be sufficiently charming to make the viewer care about their fates. I'll grant that in real-life, divorcing people lack charm, are vengeful, and act greedily. So what? Why see a movie about that? At least Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary had sufficient charm to make readers care about their awful fates. Johansson and Driver: not so much.

[spikepipsqueak]

Many thanks Ecurb. Great film recommendations that will while away my spare hours for ages.

[Buh4Bee]

That's a good point. We just don't really care about the characters. I felt it was more of the same- Hollywood trying on a new gown over the same old body. There was nothing new there, but it was a good movie. I just wish it was more.

[jajdude]

Tony (2009) -- Pretty good serial killer movie, the British Tony is a bit like the American Dahmer, but in this film we don't even feel much sympathy for his victims, as they're lousy people. Of course Tony is a monster, beneath mild manners and poor social skills. It was well made and well acted, not too gross. 7/10

[jajdude]

double

[ssubterranean]

Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, ang Hugh Grant, among others. Enjoyed reading the book long time ago, enjoyed the movie as well. Stories of romance and heartbreak of two Dashwood sisters, while surviving change way of life after their father left the estate they lived in to the son from his first marriage.

[Sancho]

Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket”

Gotta rewatch it every so often. I’m not sure why. I suppose it suggests something about the duality of man. You know, the Jungian thing.

[Ecurb]

Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket”

Gotta rewatch it every so often. I’m not sure why. I suppose it suggests something about the duality of man. You know, the Jungian thing.

I saw it in the theater, and I remember Kubrik's obsession with faces -- long, almost endless closeups of strange and interesting faces. He always liked faces (hence interesting faces like Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duval).

On another note, I'm halfway through "Big Rock Candy Mountain", partly on your recommendation. I've read a few Stegner novels, memoirs and histories before (and like them), but haven't gotten to his most famous (along with "Angle of Repose", which I have read).

[Sancho]

Sgt Hartman - Lemme see your war face!

Pvt Joker - Sir?

Hartman - You got a war face? Aaaaaaaarg! That’s a war face. Now lemme see your war face.

Joker - Aaaaaarg!

Hartman - Bullsh*t you didn’t convince me. Lemme see your real war face!

Joker - Aaaaaaaaaaarg!

Hartman - You didn’t scare me. Work on it.

You may be on to something, Ecurb. Every time I watch that movie I find something I didn’t notice before.

As for the Stegner books, I struggled with “Angle of Repose.” Probably I should give it another go sometime.

[jajdude]

Tokyo Sonata (2008) - directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa who has done some horror films as well, this is an outstanding drama about a Japanese man who loses his job, goes through a crisis, as does his wife, and their talented son who plays the piano very well. I liked this one very much. 8/10

For another outstanding Japanese drama I recommend Departures (2008)... 9/10

[Francis Meadows]

The Paperboy (2012) - Watched it after I read the novel. Strong performance by McConaughey and Kidman. The movie has a good rhythm to it and, even after having read the novel, it is a rivetting watch. Still, I prefer the ending of the novel to the ending of the movie. It has more of life's unavoidable bland cruelty to it in my opinion.

Francis

[bounty]

its interesting to consider how it is that threads seemingly die, or at least go dormant for months into years at a time. this seems like one that wouldn't have.

I watch a lot of movies, and rather than post the last one I saw, id like to post one that I was surprised by thoroughly enjoying and would recommend to everyone: Rio.

its cute, comical, touching, inspiring, deliciously elemental, visually wonderfully colorful, and has a happy ending!

I recently changed my desk top background to a screen shot from the movie.

[tailor STATELY]

Haven't seen Rio yet... will have to find it on your recommendation Wanted so badly to watch Top Gun, Maverick at the theater, but never made it... did watch it streaming on Prime and wasn't disappointed. A notch above the earlier Top Gun in some ways which I did see on the big screen way back when, where I will only stream the reruns for about 15-20 minutes total of selected scenes: opening, ending, and the appearance of Maverick's civilian instructor (after bar scene) - makes for a very enjoyable fast movie.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

[bounty]

a heads-up tailor, its not a musical in the strictest sense, but there are some musical numbers and dancing in it. no zombies though. it probably helps if you like animals in general and birds in particular.

I loved top gun maverick and I can see how itd be better on the big screen. heck id put it a couple notches above the original but at the same time, I loved how the sequel was so dependent on the original and how knowledge of the former made the latter so much better.

[Danik 2016]

I don´t remember my last film at the theater, it was way before pandemics.

The last film I remember watching on line is La Strada (The Road) one of the first films if not the first by Frederico Fellini, when he wasn´t famous yet and had difficulties getting actors to work for him. The film casts his wife Giulietta Masina, one of the best actresses I ever new in the main roll. Another curiosity is Antony Quinn as male protagonist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CucHyXsxCU8