Last movie you saw and what you thought...

We’re heading out shortly for Screen the Unseen at AMC. I’ll try to remember to post about it later or tomorrow.
The movie was “Better Man”. It was the story of British pop star Robbie Williams. Neither of us had ever heard of him though some of the music sounded vaguely familiar.

The movie was good. Very reminiscent of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. It has one incredibly odd feature, and this isn’t a spoiler by any means as it’s featured in the trailer and advertising, but Robbie is played by a monkey. I mean he’s a person but looks like a monkey. There’s never any sort of explanation for this at all. Perhaps it’s some kind of metaphor but neither of us have a clue what it was.
 
The movie was “Better Man”. It was the story of British pop star Robbie Williams. Neither of us had ever heard of him though some of the music sounded vaguely familiar.

The movie was good. Very reminiscent of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. It has one incredibly odd feature, and this isn’t a spoiler by any means as it’s featured in the trailer and advertising, but Robbie is played by a monkey. I mean he’s a person but looks like a monkey. There’s never any sort of explanation for this at all. Perhaps it’s some kind of metaphor but neither of us have a clue what it was.

Robbie Williams explaining why he is portrayed as a chimpanzee in the film:

Robbie Williams
 
One more comment about “Better Man” and that’s that I think the whole ape thing really detracted from the film. I found it very distracting. Rather than focusing on the story I kept thinking, “why is he an ape?”, “why doesn’t anyone else seem to notice that he’s an ape?”, “when are we going to find out why he’s an ape?”, “is there going to be some transition scene when he stops being an ape?”.

I did enjoy the film and recommend it, but just be prepared to completely ignore the fact that the main character is inexplicably played by an ape.
 
I've been spending some time with a lady who is a big fan of movies on the big screen. One of the few things we have in common, call it a "situationship", more than a relationship. We've seen several movies in theaters the past few months:

A Real Pain - Mentioned above. Agree on the acting. Attendance was pitched to me a watching a comedy. There are a few funny scenes, but I found it more a human relationship/family dynamics drama set against the history of the Holocaust. Small cast with location shots, well-crafted movie. Glad I saw it, once was enough.

A Complete Unknown - Also mentioned above. Interesting look at the folk scene and other changes in music in that era. I'm a Bob Dylan fan, and like everything Dylan, one has to wonder how much of what was depicted actually happened that way. Good thing they cut off they story in 1965. Going just another few years would have made it hard to tell a coherent story and key relationships from those early years wouldn't have had as much detail as they did. Even then it could have ended 15 minutes or so earlier and been more impactful IMO. I'll watch it again when I can get it with captions as Chalamet mastered the Dylan mumble and some dialogue was hard to hear.

Watched Babygirl with Nicole Kidman Sunday. Psycho-sexual drama about a middle-aged (meaning younger than me;)) CEO who latches on to one of her company's young interns to indulge what we later learn to be long-repressed bedroom fantasies. All while married to Antonio Banderas and keeping up with two teen girls.

Nothing erotic about the bedroom scenes as they occur against this weird psychological tension. Implausible sequence of events to set up the affair, and too few hints that would help explain her behavior.

If you're curious about how thin Kidman is and the quality of her cosmetic surgeries (or is it her body double?), it might be worth the $7 that I paid. I wasn't, so I'd call it a waste of time and money. This was a choice of my companion, and she didn't care for it. Her primary complaint is that it's too female-centric. I need to have her explain that ;)
We stopped watching it after 20 minutes.
 
We watched The Fall Guy last night. Wasn't interested but it got pretty good ratings on rottentomatoes so we watched. It was OK, but nothing special IMO.

We're going to see A Complete Unknown this afternoon, I am expecting it to be great - we'll see.
 
"First Man", story of Neil Armstrong from 1961 through the moon landing in 1969. A different take on the space program focusing more on Armstrong's personality and motivations than the scientific breakthroughs and technical achievements. I bought the 4K blu-ray on sale for $9.95.

There were breathtaking sequences of some of the flight adventures like the X-15 test flights, Gemini 8 docking in space (a harrowing scene, quite scary), and of course the moon landing itself. Fantastic cinematography throughout, although the director overused the "shaky cam" method of shooting scenes. Shaky cam makes sense when shooting scenes in space or rockets blasting off, but not when shooting scenes of people doing everyday things.

Regarding the blasting off scenes, these were shot as if the space capsule was going to rattle and burst apart. The sound editing was full of rivets groaning, metal screeching, components banging together. Very claustrophobic. It was quite unnerving to watch and hear, esp. on a home theater system with subwoofer.

I wondered about some of the sets. For example, the control panels and switchboards inside the Gemini and Apollo capsules were grubby and dirty, with wear marks. I might be wrong, but I assumed each capsule was built from brand new parts and not recycled stuff.

The moon landing scene and subsequent moon walking scenes were excellent. I give the movie an 8 out of 10.
 
Have any of you taken the opportunity to see the movie about Bob Dylan? There must be quite a few Dylan fans here.

I thought the movie was very entertaining and well done. It covers Dylan's early career and explains much about how he "burst on the scene already a legend" as Joan Baez would later say in musical prose. Baez figures prominently in the story. Timothee Chalamet (Dylan) and Monica Barbaro (Baez) are wonderful with their portrayals and amazingly sang and played all of the songs. Edward Norton is fine as Pete Seeger.

I love a period film and all the pieces are in place. The cinematography is beautiful, especially the concert scenes where there was some creative use of color.

I'm not a big Dylan fan at all but enjoyed it a lot. If you like the 60's music scene it's a must see in my opinion.
We saw it this past week and really enjoyed it. One interesting note is that Monica Barbaro is the woman in the famous short video "It's Not About the Nail."
 
We saw it this past week and really enjoyed it. One interesting note is that Monica Barbaro is the woman in the famous short video "It's Not About the Nail."
wow, an I though she was a newcomer. Silly me!
 
A Different Man
Streaming on Max. Sebastian Stan won the Golden Globe for best actor, so I was curious about this one. Adam Pearson is a real life person with the facial disfigurement from neurofibromatosis and also appears. I didn’t enjoy this movie as much as I had hoped. Neither main characters seemed too sympathetic to me. Sebastian Stan’s character was a bit too morose and disturbed, and Pearson’s character was kind of obnoxious. It left me feeling a bit empty and disappointed.
 
The Straight Story

Thought we would watch a “normal” movie by David Lynch in memory of his passing. We streamed it on Amazon Prime for $3.79. It is based on the true story of Alvin Straight who in his 70s drove his lawn mower from Iowa to Wisconsin to make peace with his estranged and ailing brother. Richard Farnswoth plays the main character Alvin. Richard was nominated for an Academy best actor award for the portrayal.

We enjoyed the sweeping views of the rural Midwest accompanied by a beautiful music score. Even more memorable are the kind folks Alvin encounters that help him along his journey and he in turn helps them with their own journeys in life.

Too bad Harry Dean Stanton as Alvin’s brother only has a brief appearance.
 
The Substance with Golden Globe winner Demi Moore. Too SciFi for us!
Liked the first part of it, then it succumbed to cheap gory effects later on.
 
I'm a big fan of going to the theater. Yesterday I saw Flight Risk with Mark Wahlberg. Absolutely awful. LOL
 
One of the Transformers movies with DGS, seemed a typical blow-things-up action movie.
Not my kind of thing, but spending time with grandkids is priceless!
 
CODA
A daughter is the only hearing member of a deaf family. It’s a story of her struggle between helping her family and becoming independent. Me and DW thought it was great. My daughter told us about it - she is a sign language student. Apparently the movie was well received by the deaf community.
 
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CODA
A daughter is the only hearing member of a deaf family. It’s a story of her struggle between helping her family and becoming independent. Me and DW thought it was great. My daughter told us about it - she is a sign language student. Apparently the movie was well received by the deaf community.
LOVED that movie. So damn good!
 
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CODA
A daughter is the only hearing member of a deaf family. It’s a story of her struggle between helping her family and becoming independent. Me and DW thought it was great. My daughter told us about it - she is a sign language student. Apparently the movie was well received by the deaf community.
It was also very well received by the hearing community. From Wikipedia:
CODA won numerous awards, including all three nominations at the 94th [2021] Academy AwardsBest Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Kotsur, and Best Adapted Screenplay, becoming the seventh Best Picture winner to win every award for which it was nominated.[a] It became the first film both distributed by a streaming service and the first film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to win Best Picture
 
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Emilia Pérez
Streaming on Netflix. I saw this was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It’s mostly in Spanish, so I watched with English subtitles. I was very surprised by some aspects of this movie. It’s a gritty crime melodrama, but then Zoe Saldaña suddenly begins singing. A musical? It was a strange film, sprinkled with mafia-type violence, sometimes with syncopated rhythms, and a story told partly in song and mostly by drama. Critics loved this, audiences did not. Fizzled at the box office. I didn’t care for the subject matter, although it’s pretty unique storytelling.
 
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Continuing our Oscar nomination run:

Conclave - always suspicious of "inner workings of the Catholic Church" movies but this was well done. Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini all very good. Ending is contrived.

Anora - weird mix of drama, humor, slapstick, and violence. Didn't care for the story but Mikey Madison is great.

The Apprentice - Sebastian Stan captures Trump perfectly. A "how he got to be who he is today" story but the script clearly written with the benefit of hindsight that is colored by knowledge of subsequent events. The surprising standout is Jeremy Strong's masterful portrayal of Roy Cohn -- definitely Oscar worthy.
 
Emilia Pérez
Streaming on Netflix. I saw this was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It’s mostly in Spanish, so I watched with English subtitles. I was very surprised by some aspects of this movie. It’s a gritty crime melodrama, but then Zoe Saldaña suddenly begins singing. A musical? It was a strange film, sprinkled with mafia-type violence, sometimes with syncopated rhythms, and a story told partly in song and mostly by drama. Critics loved this, audiences did not. Fizzled at the box office. I didn’t care for the subject matter, although it’s pretty unique storytelling.
I'm halfway through this, and while I knew a little about the story, I wasn't expecting a musical. So far they've kept that part somewhat cohesive. It is compelling and interesting though, and I'll finish it tonight.
 
I found a very good and interesting movie called “The Night Of” on HBO. This is like ID and am half way through it.
The premise is about a murder mystery. The
accused murderer is a young naive and nerdy Pakistani college kid and his family who live in NY.
 
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