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knox
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 1:32 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
bartist wrote:
Watched a couple of films which can both be categorized as post-apocalyptic romances....

"Only" was better, carried on the strong shoulders of Freida Pinto and Leslie Odom, as a couple holed up against a comet-borne pathogen that has killed off most of Earth's female population...


It seems to be carved in stone in the movie industry that, if only a handful of women remain on the planet, they must be stunning. I mostly liked "Only," not least for the melancholy but sweet ending which didn't swoop in with some miraculous tech fix and somehow reverse the reality that we're all f--ked. It made the couple's final journey truly meaningful.
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carrobin
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:54 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
If there was only one woman left in the world, I'd bet it would be Camryn Manheim. But then I'm a "Person of Interest" fan.

I didn't know there was a movie of "The Professor and the Madman"--I read the Simon Winchester book a few years ago. I'll try to check out the film.
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bartist
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 1:31 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I liked it, too, though some spots seemed uneven or stretching plausibility. It is darkly amusing how the director of the Broadmoor Asylum thinks of himself as progressive and asserts that mental health treatment is "much better than it used to be," then, after Dr. Minor (Sean Penn) has horribly mutilated himself, launches a regimen of utterly barbaric therapies that appear to add injury to injury. Dr. Minor's Civil War experiences as a field physician seem to have brought on adult-onset schizophrenia, but left his remarkable intellect intact.

A good ensemble, including Steve Coogan as one of the Oxford board, and I, like Knox, enjoyed the wordplay.

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billyweeds
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2021 12:15 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
I must say that my new movie "Psycho Ape!" is one of the more entertaining items of the year. You can rent it for $1.99 at Amazon Prime video. The link is www.tinyurl.com/yy37v7fo. I've been in a ton of movies, and this is one of the handful I wholeheartedly endorse. It's not for everyone--it's intermittently gross and gory and uninterruptedly silly--but for those who get its vibe it's hilarious. John Waters meets The Three Stooges--or as one online critic said, "If you stapled together MAD Magazine and Fangoria, you'd have something like 'Psycho Ape!'"
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gromit
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 7:34 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Soylent Green is still as tasty as ever.
Should come on market next year -- the film is set in 2022.
Though the overpopulation message is dated -- at least in the developed world. Not easy predicting the future 50 years out.

It's essentially an inverted version of Omega Man. There the world had fallen apart due to depopulation by a biologic agent. While a small group of mutant survivors hunts down and tries to kill Charlton Heston. In Soy Green, the planet is again fucked, but this time it's a combo of global warming and overpopulation, while a small band tries to hunt down and kill Charlton Heston. In both, he gets to stomp around and do as he pleases and make his own rules.

The casting in SG is clever. Try to think of an older generation actor who is similar to Heston in his stiff effectiveness, odd good looks, slightly outsider/hip paternalism -- and you'd come up with none other than . . . Joseph Cotton, who plays the Soylent exec who is murdered so he won't spill the secret ingredient. They bring in another stiff actor in Chuck Connors, who matches Heston in ruggedness. And then top it off, an aged Edward G Robinson, who really steals the show if anyone is watching for the acting. Kudos to the casting director.

The film focuses more on the detective action and the environmental dystopia is mostly background. There's a real streak of misogyny, with good looking women being assigned to fancy apartments as sex kittens/servants and referred to as "furniture". One building supervisor beats up a few of these comfort women when he finds them congregating together; while Heston punches and smacks down his adversary's girlfriend. The only female really in the film is a "furniture" girl who basically is raped by Heston, tries to please him as much as possible, and is passed to the new apartment owner. Yikes!

I liked that Heston's NYC policeman is basically dressed like a garbageman throughout. Some of the film is decidedly low budget. But I like how the somewhat hokey heavy equipment "scoops" just lift up protesters like so much dirt. And then during the chase in the soylent factory, first Heston scurries over the soylent green production line and then a vanquished employee lands on the SG conveyor belt (lots of nice hints like those scattered around).

I'm not sure how many sci-fi detective films are out there. Alphaville comes to mind, where Eddie Constantine rampages around and does as he pleases even more so than Heston here. (I like films where one character plays by such different rules that they seem to have come from another film entirely).

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bartist
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 12:18 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
gromit wrote:
Soylent Green is still as tasty as ever.
Should come on market next year -- the film is set in 2022....


I'm not sure how many sci-fi detective films are out there... [


Possibly my favorite subgenre...

I Robot
Blade Runner (and its sequelae)
A Scanner Darkly
Source Code
Minority Report
Dark City
Looper
Gattaca
Equilibrium
Total Recall
Outland (the 1980 one with Sean Connery)

...to name a few that stand out for me. I note four of them are Philip Dick adaptations.

Haven't seen SG in decades. Thanks, now I have to revisit and possibly wallow in the PC transgressions. I laughed at Jim Broadbent's Soylent Green line in "Cloud Atlas, " possibly the funniest part of that film.

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bartist
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 12:34 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
https://youtu.be/Wg_ur5I_qRA

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gromit
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:52 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I guess 12 Monkeys qualifies too ...

The only thing I recall about Cloud Atlas was disliking it.

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bartist
Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2021 3:33 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
12 M would, yes. About half of Cloud Atlas was a pretty good, but was marred by some sloppy and tenuously connected segments with Tom Hanks. Which shows perhaps how one sour spot in an apple can ruin the whole fruit. I may have mentioned rewatching it in the past year, and getting more good from it on a second look as I was able to follow its transmigratory logic better.

Have Soylent in the viewing pile. First the spouse and I are watching The Men Who Stare at Goats, which she hadn't seen.

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gromit
Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:04 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I really enjoyed The Men Who Stare at Goats. Think it really works. Tells a good tale. However it didn't resonate in the world at large or get much attention for whatever reason. Perhaps endless war fatigue combined with no market for mockery of the military in these times when soldiers are uncritically deemed heroes(?) And/or poor marketing/studio backing(?)

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gromit
Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 2:37 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Network is good but always leaves me a bit dissatisfied. It starts off with a bang with a serious news anchor going rogue. Then the unscrupulous network execs decide to run with that even if the newsman is suspected of having mental problems. But then it veers away from the actual news program and what the viewers see, instead turning into a backroom expose of corporate intrigue and greed. This becomes less interesting than Howard Beale's spiels. Do we ever see Sybil the Soothsayer's predictions of future news? It's a funny idea with a good visual, but then stays hidden in the background.

I really don't care much about how one aging exec leaves his wife for another hard-charging neurotic young female exec. And it's not terribly appealing that the female exec is portrayed as basically having to act like a man to succeed in business (she says that sexually she acts just like a man, wanting to do it quickly and leave). For my money, too much corporate drama and family drama -- not enough of how the actual news program morphs into an absurd infotainment show.

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bartist
Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:49 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
So long since I watched, will need to see again to comment.

Rewatching Goats I realized my 1st viewing, about a year after its release in 2009, was with some distractions, so there were scenes I'd missed or not absorbed. Sort of a showcase for actors to do their particular forte -- Jeff Bridges is often Dude-like (especially in the flashbacks where he's going to communes and New Age centers to explore mind expansion), Kevin Spacey brings the House of Cards treachery and villainy, Clooney channels his Coen Bros roles and their pompous goofiness, and Ewan McGregor brings his Trainspotting penchant for getting sucked wide-eyed into a world of madness and mindfucks. As Gromit said, it tells a good story, really works in its sendup of military mindsets, and it just struck me as an incredibly fun and weird filmmaking project to be a part of.

Yeah, it wasn't quite the hit it might have been at a different time, and the script though quite good, didn't quite attain a Paranormal Big Lebowski. I liked the Mother Earth litany that Bridges leads the men in, with "... I pray my boots will always kiss your face..."

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carrobin
Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 11:36 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
TCM is running an alphabetical "Oscars tribute," and they finished the Ms today. I caught bits of "My Favorite Wife" and "My Favorite Year," then got caught by "Mystery Street," which I'd also seen long ago but had forgotten what a good mystery it is indeed, with Ricardo Montalban as the dogged detective and Elsa Lanchester as the sly greedy landlady. I'm not sure how TCM chooses the films, since the Oscars vary from Best Picture to Best Actor to Best Story (the now defunct category in which "Mystery Street" won), but it makes the lineup much more interesting than if they just ran the Best Pictures.
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Syd
Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:31 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I recorded "Midnight Lace" the other day. They got to run it because it was up for Best Costume.

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billyweeds
Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:12 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Syd wrote:
I recorded "Midnight Lace" the other day. They got to run it because it was up for Best Costume.


I usually love Doris Day, but she redefined overacting in this one. And the plot was totally transparent. Terrible movie.
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