Last movie watched...

[Funt Solo]

Jaws is a perfect example of model-replacement fish-bias. There are plenty of sharks who were hungry for the part - just the kind of thing they could really sink their teeth into - a chance to show off their acting chops. And they make an animatronic instead. It's fucking Dumbo all over again!

[The Legendary Shark]

All the real sharks turned it down or were dropped for being too bitey.

[pictsy]

Jaws is a perfect example of model-replacement fish-bias. There are plenty of sharks who were hungry for the part - just the kind of thing they could really sink their teeth into - a chance to show off their acting chops. And they make an animatronic instead. It's fucking Dumbo all over again!

Your puns hurt my kidneys.

[milstar]

But Jaws is a class film compared to this.

I dunno. Richard Dreyfuss is a bit too short and tubby to be an effective leading man. Roy Scheider is no oil painting and I'm not sure Robert Shaw has his own teeth. What were they thinking casting these ugly fuckers as heroes? They could have got fit and handsome people.

Well, if it gets remade today, expect slim bare chested guys in. That's what market "supposedly" dictates. But i did not have problem with the casting. Wait til you see Michael Caine as supposed hero. And I like Roy Scheider.

Oh behave  - who doesn't get turned on by a sexy shark?

Depends if they give a good bite.

[milstar]

All the real sharks turned it down or were dropped for being too bitey.

I suppose you talk from personal experience? I mean, for the legendary shark?

[Link Prime]

Sputnik is a neat little Alien meets Colossal outing with wonderful Soviet atmosphere and institutional architecture that made me nostalgic for my days in UCD's Belfield campus. The two leads, Oksana Akinshina and Fedor Bondarchuk are both terrific, and the alien design is novel and scary. Recommended.

I had a few hours to kill yesterday morning while my liver processed 5 cans of draught Guinness and half a litre of Redbreast whiskey, so scoured my Netflix recommendations for something to ease the pain.
The prior mental note of a Tordelback recommendation led me to 1980's Soviet occupied Kazakhstan.

It was a game of two halves.

I really enjoyed the first hour - great set-up, special effects, atmosphere, acting - the works.
I was rubbing my sweaty palms with anticipation - this was shaping up to be a genuine 10 carat diamond procured from a Gulag coal mine.

Almost exactly at halfway mark the wheels came off like the safety protocols for the Chernobyl 4 Power Station.
What was happening? Random scenes. Confusing or frankly unbelievable character motivation. Jumps in logic.
I just started to sober up couldn't get my head around it.


It's a regretful thumbs down for a flick that could've been a contender.

[CalHab]

Quite a good weekend for my film viewing and saw a couple of new ones:

Uncle Frank (Amazon Prime). A very touching story about the eponymous Uncle (Paul Bettany) and his family in South Carolina in 1970. Frank is gay and has a strained relationship with his dad and family. This is a very well written piece and every character has depth and personality. Bettany is outstanding and I wouldn't be surprised if this comes up at awards season. Well worth a watch.

Booksmart (Amazon Prime). I vaguely remembered this getting plaudits at the time but ignored it as a teen comedy. My loss, as its excellent. The film deftly skewers the stereotyping and narrow roles these films often use and provides a fun and sympathetic cast of characters. Its not exactly a realistic portrayal of teenage life, I can't believe teens in LA have a lifestyle remotely like that, but there is a truth in there. If the archetypal teen movie The Breakfast Club is hard to watch these days, then this is a far superior film and a more than adequate replacement.

[milstar]

b]Sputnik[/b] is a neat little Alien meets Colossal outing with wonderful Soviet atmosphere and institutional architecture that made me nostalgic for my days in UCD's Belfield campus. The two leads, Oksana Akinshina and Fedor Bondarchuk are both terrific, and the alien design is novel and scary. Recommended.

Ugh. I've seen Russian SF movies and they are not all my cup of tea. Except Stalker, but I don't even observe it as SF.

Goodbye Lover (1998)

Sandra (Patricia Arquette) is self-improving tape freak and sex freak. Her marriage has seen better days, and her husband Jake (Dermot Mulroney) is alcoholic who reached his bottom. Things on his job are no better either, with his brothers Ben (Don Johnson) playing a good brother role. But Sandra is screwing with Ben. Eventually, Ben gets fed up with Sandra and Jake finds out about the two's affair which leads him to the point of contemplating suicide. Ben arrives to stop him, but falls victim the the plot twists that births numerous twists. Basically, this is the premise of this wacked mash neo-noir black comedy. Probably I should have said mess. Up until Ben's Death, the movie seemed just aimless. From then on, it descends into a ridiculous twist after twist, and none of them quite witty. Like, "You know everything you learned about the movie? Well, it's all bullshit." Nothing in this film is actually as it seems and twists are half baked. Wild Things, released the same year, could teach Goodbye Lover a thing or two. Anyway, there is Marie Louise Parker, playing one of those secretaries no one pays attention to. Well, almost. After Ben kicked Sandra off, she dates Ben. [spoiler]But as it turns out, she is screwing with Jake.[/spoiler] Ellen Degeneris plays a detective rife with cynical Outlook on life and trait for uttering one dull reply after another. Actually, I guess she plays a parody of all those famous noir detective, in the vein of Raymond Chandler or Dashiel Hammet. Anyway, she is helped by dimwitted partner, whose role is just to be a dimwit. There's also a subplot involving a serial killer, but that briefly comes into a play in later stages of them. Apart from twists, the film's main problem is that comedy-crime mix doesn't work. True, the humor is very dark, sex scenes are farcical, but it rises above to really be a comedy film. Or crime film for that matter. The two elements seem to put down each other. But there's some fun here, so it's not total wreck. And numerous Dutch angles are always appreciated

[Funt Solo]

Sub-threading with "Last movie watched part of the way through before I gave up out of sheer boredom...":

The Bank Job - a Jason Statham vehicle set in 1971 and based on a true story, this is turgid bollocks where the crims are so stupid that you want them to be caught. As dull as dishwater, I managed about two thirds before being distracted by a ladybug crawling over some desk dust.

War Dogs - a Jonah Hill vehicle, although the main character is another actor who sounds like he's doing a Jonah Hill impersonation. It's got a voice over that indicates it's trying to be a cross between Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street, and the plot is all "isn't it fun to be a capitalist shit-heel earning money from global conflict". Openly despising the moral choices of the two leads to the extent that they're not anti-heroes but open-villains made this difficult to swallow and I only managed about a third before jumping ship.

[von Boom]

Space Sweepers. A Korean film on Netflix. It's surprisingly good up to a point. There are elements I would have changed or dropped but on the whole a film that I would recommend. I recognise elements from 2000AD, The Fifth Element, Star Wars, and Dune. I think it might be compared to The Expanse series but with a more organic feel and better acting.

[CalHab]

War Dogs - a Jonah Hill vehicle, although the main character is another actor who sounds like he's doing a Jonah Hill impersonation. It's got a voice over that indicates it's trying to be a cross between Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street, and the plot is all "isn't it fun to be a capitalist shit-heel earning money from global conflict". Openly despising the moral choices of the two leads to the extent that they're not anti-heroes but open-villains made this difficult to swallow and I only managed about a third before jumping ship.

This sounds a bit like the Nicolas Cage film Lord of War? I remember that being an interesting but uneven film (obviously this description could apply to any Nic Cage film).

[milstar]

Gone  Girl (2014)

Well, this movie reimbursed my view not to marry. Perhaps never. What this film does is cynical view on the nature marriage of marriage. Like when Nick says:"I loved you and then all we did was resent each other, try to control each other. We caused each other pain." His wife's retort:" That's marriage." My feelings are mixed overall. The movie is cliched. How many times we've seen where a couple has secrets, that not everything is as it seems? Wife (or husband) that goes mad, or hiding from his/her second half? But the intricately plot pays it back. It builds slowly, then descends into a engaging mystery, where we learn that Nick is actually not the ideal husband you'd thought to be, because is not the hero here. Then it breaks up in the second half, which are not that interesting to me as the film. [spoiler]In fact, reveal that Amy escape could be saved for the third act, perhaps. [/spoiler] Also, I wished that Amy got killed or imprisoned. Not often you see the villains win, some might say it's refreshment to see, but I was under - "the psycho bitch must go down". However, 2 and half hours (if you stay thru the last drame of the ending credits) didn't leave me bored, and for a movie of that lenght, it ran up pretty quickly, which is a good thing, I guess.

[Tiplodocus]

This might just be me but I don't think basing life decisions, such as whether to get married, on how a thing is depicted in film and televsion is a good idea.

[milstar]

probably true, but after watching Jaws, I don't think I'll ever swim in the ocean.

[I, Cosh]

This might just be me but I don't think basing life decisions, such as whether to get married, on how a thing is depicted in film and televsion is a good idea.

I still ain't gettin' on no plane, fool!