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Originally posted by John Stuart MillRIP: Charlie Munger​Originally posted by Robert “Hoot†Gibson -
The Reacher novels are fantastic. Lee Child writes them blind: whatever coms to him goes in the story. Unreal talent.
And they can be hilarious. I said that once at a writer's conference and got baffled looks. Those books are seriously funny, almost in a meta way. Reacher's always gauging the physics of how he's going to have to kick somebody's ass. I only saw the first movie, which I liked, but that sense of wild snark doesn't translate to the movies.
Bad Luck and Trouble is the best in the series I've read. The Enemy is also really good and interesting because it follows Reacher years ago when he's in the military.Comment
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Also, Reacher isn't a super spy nor an assassin. He's just a regular guy who walks everywhere he goes with a toothbrush and wreaks havoc.
That's another thing that might not translate to the movies. It's easy to see Tom Cruise's Reacher as kind of a Jason Bourne type. In the novels he just shows up in a town and starts taking down the corruption. That regular guy-turned-human-maelstrom makes them incredibly entertaining.Comment
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He fit's within the "ultimate badassery" "secret squirrel" genre. Gray man, lives of the grid etc. (doesn't do laundry just shops at goodwill...) In all honesty, they are fine books but the MP background as the genesis of his mystique just lost me. As a concept it is a complete non-starter for me.
Originally posted by John Stuart MillRIP: Charlie Munger​Originally posted by Robert “Hoot†GibsonComment
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The Void.
This is your average monster movie, slasher flick, cult film, and claustrophobic people-trapped-in-a-single-setting romp all in one. It's a horror film in a blender as a group of people--each of them played by amateur actors who deliver lines that nobody would in real life--deal with a cadre of robed weirdos and blood-drooling monsters inside the world's weirdest hospital. For all its amateurism this movie sticks with you and has some wild set pieces. The directors use the conceit of the hospital to maximum effect, as every doorway, hallway, entryway, breezeway, and examination room is milked for maximum visual shock.
This is a mutt of a movie that borrows more than it invents, but it has a kind of surreal and frankly weird vibe that makes you keep watching even as you cringe. Recommended for horror movie buffs. It's a new release on Netflix.
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Also, I failed to mention this but I watched the Netflix true crime documentary The Keepers last month. They're talking about this on the news this morning.
It's pretty great if you haven't seen it. In some ways it might be better than Making a Murderer. Follows the unsolved murder of a Baltimore nun in the 1960s and deep-dives into the goings-on at a Catholic school run by a priest who was possibly a sadist. Incredibly well-done true crime.Comment
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Saw GIRLS TRIP......hilarious....I laughed until I cried
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Dunkirk was absolutely awesome. Christopher Nolan's masterpiece.
Epic story, told intimately. Bravura filmmaking. Highest recommendation.Comment
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Dunkirk.
Christopher Nolan brings his fragmented style to a war film, and the results are so-so. The movie is obviously a technical colossus as you would expect with Nolan, but the segmented, short-chapter-after-short-chapter MO he pulled off so expertly in films like Memento here causes the film to be choppy and at times outright confusing. Who is whom (one odd thing about the movie is how every character looks absolutely the same)? What are the characters talking about? Is that the character from the boat or the plane or the--oops, we're onto another scenelet, and then back again, the nervous camera sweeping over three narratives that could've been entire movies in themselves.
A tour de force visually, but the narrative here has been outdone many times by simply better war movies. Nolan's weakest film.Comment
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Perhaps you should watch it again. It wasn't that difficult to understand.
It was one of the tightest, most focused, and intense, war movies I've ever seen. A masterpiece. Completely disagree with you.
If you think this is weaker than "Following" or "The Dark Knight Rises," I'm not sure what to tell you.Comment
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The Overnight.
A group of four adults living in Los Angeles get together for a playdate that gets crazy. I really liked this movie although it has some long movements where the jokes don't really hit. There's a sense of wistfulness at times that speaks to me of a specifically adult condition--the sense that it's difficult to make friends at times the way kids do, even more difficult to find people whose hobbies match up with yours. This is a movie about finding kindred souls and, yes, there's some insane raunchiness that occurs along the way.
Beware because this movie has some man-on-man action. But the performances are terrific (I loved Jason Schwarzman) and the movie has a lot of heart. Recommended if you're looking for a very R-rated comedy on Netflix.Comment
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Queen of Earth.
Can't remember if I reviewed this one above, but it's another one that's available on Netflix. It's billed as a "thriller," but it's more of a headtrippy exercise into atmosphere--in fact the entirety of the movie occurs inside an isolated lakeside cabin. The most interesting thing about this is its nerve-jangling score; the second most interesting thing is how close the camera pulls onto its subjects. Elisabeth Moss's face is explored and re-explored and just at the moment you get really uncomfortable...the camera holds for about ten more seconds. This creates a weird kind of intensity even though the plot of this is tedious, and every character is super whiny and pretty horrible.
Recommended if you're looking for a different kind of thriller or if you're a fan of Bergman's Persona, but this movie is not for everyone.Comment
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Being There.
Peter Sellers in a role that predated Forrest Gump by almost twenty years. Sellers plays a mentally slow everyman who bumbles his way into becoming one of the most powerful men in America. This isn't the first time I've seen this, but my dad's wife bought it during our just-finished Florida vacation. The most fascinating thing about it is how it calls some of the things that are happening in America right now with our government.
The laughs in this are absolutely not the kind that make your ribs hurt, but it's a clever movie that serves as a biting commentary on class and American politics. Recommended if you haven't seen it and you're looking for a forgotten classic.Comment
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Following is a great film. A case can be made that it's Nolan's signature film in that it set the blueprint for his style.
A lot of what was in this movie was done better in Anthony Doerr's novel All the Light We Cannot See. Even the first scene of Doerr's novel and Dunkirk are similar. That book is a masterpiece; Nolan has made masterpieces in his career, but this movie is far from it.Comment
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