What are we watching now?

[laxu]

We watched Lucy (2014) last night. I can't believe how bad Scarlett Johansson was; I didn't know she was that bad of an actor. Her prodigiously terrible performance was rivaled only by Luc Besson's piece of shit eleven year old boy directing and writing, as well as Julien Rey's editing, all of which seemed to aspire to emulate commercials targeting business class world travelers.

I cannot stop puking.

It was made worse by its own sense of profundity. It took a decade to write this? I don't like to rag on the intelligence of others, but how incurious is this guy?

Lucy is straight up insulting to the intelligence of the viewer. I didn't even remember it was directed and written by Luc Besson.

Valerian is another complete turd that had the potential to be a good film - with a completely different casting, director and writer.

Besson's only worthwhile works are Leon and Fifth Element.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I thought The Family by Besson was great. I am perfectly fine with films that could be deemed 'dumb'. Waiting for masterpieces to fill up my free time would be trudge to say the very least.

 

[laxu]

I made myself a cocktail and watched Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift last night. I hadn't seen it in ages so I wanted to check it out again.

It's just a fun, stupid, ridiculous film that makes absolutely zero sense in terms of plot. Everything is just a ploy to get these guys racing. The racing scenes do still look really good.

It's just funny how most of the characters switch to speaking English so quickly, in a country notorious for poor English proficiency. On the flipside, the main character coming in without knowing any Japanese and somehow managing to work through school. Also every character has a shit ton of free time, and there's maybe two scenes where they actually go to school.

I had to look it up, but Lucas Black, who played the main character, was actually around 17-18 when the film was made. Except he somehow manages to look like he's in his mid to late 20s, but maybe it's just the terrible haircut. I seriously thought it was actually a case of Hollywood using 20-somethings and trying to pass them off as high school kids.

 

[Aelred]

FWIW, I prefer Besson's early French films such as La Femme Nikita and Subway to his Sci Fi.

Once I got used to subtitles there are many, many more masterpieces to choose from. Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Krzystov Kieslowsky, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Sergio Leone, Kurasawa, Kobayashi...

I haven't watched La Reine Margot or the Three Colors movies in some time. Nothing much being released in the Anglosphere interests me - I may try House of the Dragon but still feel burned by the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones.

Godzilla Minus One was a pleasant little surprise, as is One Piece so far.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Movie about the Crackberry. I never knew their story. Good movie!

 

[JiveTurkey]

Movie about the Crackberry. I never knew their story. Good movie!

This movie was great!

 

[State of Epicicity]

FWIW, I prefer Besson's early French films such as La Femme Nikita and Subway to his Sci Fi.

Once I got used to subtitles there are many, many more masterpieces to choose from. Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Krzystov Kieslowsky, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Sergio Leone, Kurasawa, Kobayashi...

I haven't watched La Reine Margot or the Three Colors movies in some time. Nothing much being released in the Anglosphere interests me - I may try House of the Dragon but still feel burned by the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones.

Godzilla Minus One was a pleasant little surprise, as is One Piece so far.

I forgot about La Femme Nikita. I remember liking that when it first came out. I watched nearly all of Bergman's films, and I remember liking Hour of The Wolf most, maybe because it's just a horror film.

 

[State of Epicicity]

Last night we watched Postcards From The Edge, from 1990, to help make up for suffering through Lucy. Man, I'm always blown away by Meryl Streep, and I love Shirley MacLaine. The thing about Streep is that she's almost hyper present. Every nuance and subtlety of what's going on around her registers in her face.

This was based on Carrie Fisher's account of her own addictions and how they demolished her career, but somehow it was told as part comedy. I really liked it.

In addition, I learned that Meryl Streep, in addition to being one of the greatest screen actors, is one hell of a singer.

 

[laxu]

Watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. It's a surprisingly decent, action packed little film. Yes, it has a lot of Tom Cruise running as fast as he can. Interested enough to watch Part Two whenever it comes out.

I need to figure out some TV shows I want to watch. I've been holding off on a lot of stuff (Fargo, Tokyo Vice, True Detective, Shogun...) because I want to watch them with my spouse when she comes back home in a few months, and many of the things I want to watch are on streaming services that inexplicably aren't available in Japan.

 

[State of Epicicity]

Watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. It's a surprisingly decent, action packed little film. Yes, it has a lot of Tom Cruise running as fast as he can. Interested enough to watch Part Two whenever it comes out.

I need to figure out some TV shows I want to watch. I've been holding off on a lot of stuff (Fargo, Tokyo Vice, True Detective, Shogun...) because I want to watch them with my spouse when she comes back home in a few months, and many of the things I want to watch are on streaming services that inexplicably aren't available in Japan.

Sorry you guys have to be apart for so long.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Last night we watched Postcards From The Edge, from 1990, to help make up for suffering through Lucy. Man, I'm always blown away by Meryl Streep, and I love Shirley MacLaine. The thing about Streep is that she's almost hyper present. Every nuance and subtlety of what's going on around her registers in her face.

This was based on Carrie Fisher's account of her own addictions and how they demolished her career, but somehow it was told as part comedy. I really liked it.

In addition, I learned that Meryl Streep, in addition to being one of the greatest screen actors, is one hell of a singer.

So I just signed up for Criterion for a trial. The collection on hand looks extensive and quality content. I will say it'd be nice to have more descriptive text as you browse the listing's for things I'm not familiar with. That quibble aside; I'm excited to dig in a bit!

 

[norminal]

Besson's only worthwhile works are Leon and Fifth Element.

Kind of polarizing, but The Big Blue is a good one, if only for the cinematography.

 

[Piing]

Good to have Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat back

 

[State of Epicicity]

So I just signed up for Criterion for a trial. The collection on hand looks extensive and quality content. I will say it'd be nice to have more descriptive text as you browse the listing's for things I'm not familiar with. That quibble aside; I'm excited to dig in a bit!

Hey, cool, Man! One thing that's unique about them is that it's totally "human curated," a douche term, but a cool thing. From what I've gleaned other services are algorithmically controlled. I love the fact that Criterion actually has special features for some films, and a ton of shorts that analyze filmmaking, including the Adventures in Movie Going section, where some director or actor talks about why they love their favorite films.

Even though they're the best in my eyes, they still have crap, like Cynthia Rothrock movies haha, but still, especially if you're at all interested in an analytical look at movies, to be it's the most fun, too.

 

[Aelred]

Good to have Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat back

Doctor Who has never seen ratings like this in all its 60 years!

 

[JiveTurkey]

Hey, cool, Man! One thing that's unique about them is that it's totally "human curated," a douche term, but a cool thing. From what I've gleaned other services are algorithmically controlled. I love the fact that Criterion actually has special features for some films, and a ton of shorts that analyze filmmaking, including the Adventures in Movie Going section, where some director or actor talks about why they love their favorite films.

Even though they're the best in my eyes, they still have crap, like Cynthia Rothrock movies haha, but still, especially if you're at all interested in an analytical look at movies, to be it's the most fun, too.

Sorcerer is pure anxiety in film form

 

[State of Epicicity]

Sorcerer is pure anxiety in film form

Dude, it's pure brutatlity. This was Friedkin's favorite of his own films, which tells me he was a misanthrope haha!

 

[State of Epicicity]

Sorcerer is pure anxiety in film form

But I do love how he did create a backstory for the guys who were thrown together in their circumstance. That was a huge thing that I thought The Wages of Fear was missing. But I'm sure it could be argued the other way too. Friedkin, from everything I've read and seen, seems like he was just a d******d, just a terrible person. But he really did have some incredible films, (The Exorcist, To Live and Die in LA), so I always hold out hope that something made by him will at least be interesting. I know a lot of people like The French Connection too, but that one just never hit me, even though it has maybe the most famous chase scene in film history! I still think the chase scene in To Live and Die in LA is the best one I've ever seen. Again, just sheer brutality.

 

[State of Epicicity]

Another thing about Criterion: You'll see that for their collections they do have these minute long teasers, and I think they're often great, really made with a love of the films they contain. I think it's totally worth it to give them a shot for any collections that catch your eye.

 

[laxu]

Sorry you guys have to be apart for so long.

Thanks! Modern technology like FaceTIme has made it much easier to communicate to the other side of the world, but is of course not the same as chilling together on the sofa.