‘Black Widow’, yesterday. A healthy Marvel/Bond film hybrid. Some great giggles about hair-tossing and superhero poses. Thought Ray Winston was suitably arch. Not sure what to make of the post-credit scene. Where are they going with that I wonder...?
I Carry You With Me What an interesting film. This film is the story of a gay couple from Mexico who eventually make their way (illegally) to the US. Aside from the story itself being interesting (what exactly do you give up when you do something like this, and is it worth it over the course of a lifetime?), this film is part documentary and part dramatic narrative. The two main characters are friends of the director, and they appear as themselves in the present-day documentary portion, but actors portray these men as youths back in Mexico. It was never clear to me that these “older” men were appearing as themselves in the present-day portion of this film until I became confused while watching the credits and seeing references to documentary portions, and not seeing any credits for actors playing these men in present day. It was so seamless that I never figured it out while watching, so had to do some research when I got home. It’s almost entirely in Spanish with subtitles, and it’s a little slow moving, but the story is wonderful, and well worth hanging in there for.
Pig Nicolas Cage was great, but this was a frustrating film. I was totally into it, waiting, waiting for it to all tie up, there was a big climactic scene with Cage and Adam Arkin, ....and what?? I missed it?? I missed the point?? No, that couldn’t have happened - I was riveted, I couldn’t have missed it. So I came home and read a bunch of reviews, hoping to find out what I inexplicably missed, and find lots of things like “leaves more questions than it answers” and “don’t expect everything to be explained.” Everything about this movie was great, until it wasn’t. If anyone has any insight, please let me know.
I don't think I missed anything. I'm going to put my response in a spoiler: Spoiler Rob (Nicolas Cage) and Amir (Alex Wolff) made the meal that Darius (Adam Arkin) and his wife had had at Rob's restaurant, the only time they actually enjoyed each other's company out on one of their dates. Rob thought that if he could do this, Darius might be willing to produce the missing pig. The meal does touch Darius's heart, and he has to confess that the pig was killed accidentally by the two junkies, before Adam Arkin ever got his hands on her. Rob didn't really need the pig, because he found the truffles himself knowing the land and the trees. The pig was essentially just a beloved pet and companion. The baker was Rob's daughter, her mother was in the mausoleum. The only thing that was really bizarre and inexplicable was the after-hour restaurant worker's fight club. But given my experience working in restaurants, it's not really that bizarre.
Wow, thanks. Spoiler When Darius said “She’s dead” and started talking about junkies, for whatever reason, I did not realize he was talking about the pig. From Rob’s reaction, I thought Darius was talking about Lori (Rob’s wife), and therefore that there was some other connection between Darius and Rob, and an explanation of how Lori had died. I don’t know how I missed that/made that mistake because I really was paying very close attention. I feel much better about this film now.
The Truffle Hunters. Beautilful documentary about old Italian men and their truffle dogs searching through forests looking for the elusive fungi. Wonderful !
Like the classic "Marvel landing" - landing on the right foot and the left knee. It looks great on the page, but it's the worst of all possible landings. It's all to do with one of the television shows. And possibly... Spoiler Yelena becoming the new Black Widow.
I totally intend on seeing this movie. The trailer looks great. Last movie we saw in the theater also had Nic. Cage and was in Feb. 2020:
Sadly, I can't even remember at this point! It would have been pre-pandemic. I love going to the movies but with Covid and my own health issues coupled with basically not anything really appealing to me lately I haven't ventured back yet.
Today I saw Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain I am a huge fan and still can’t believe he took his own life. As for the documentary, it’s a mixed bag. It’s mostly very good, but towards the end, the filmmaker tries to narrow down why he killed himself via interviews with longtime friends and one of his ex-wives. It’s interesting conjecture, but no one will ever really know for sure, and I wish they had spent less time trying to figure out the reason(s) for his suicide.
That was the third of three films we saw today. We've never seen any of his TV shows or read any of his books - in fact, I'm pretty sure our only exposure to him was his explanation of Collateralized Debt Obligations in the movie The Big Short: So we're in the position of trying to understand this person, solely from the documentary, bringing nothing to the table with us. And with that, it did a pretty good job. We were able to understand why people loved watching him, and how all these people stuck by him. And it's of course fascinating in a train wreck kind of way.
The other two films we saw were: Escape Room: Tournament of Champions I Carry You With Me The first was a rather silly film, a sequel to the film where a random group of people wind up being trapped in a deadly escape room, picked off one by one. If that sounds appealing, this is more of that. Except bigger. I Carry You With Me is a love story between two men. It starts out in Mexico in the early '90s, and this is not a very good place to be gay (not that the United States was a whole lot better at the time.) If you don't like the idea of anybody coming the United States illegally, you definitely won't want to watch this film.
Saw two films today, one excellent, one...not. The excellent film was called Joe Bell, about the father of a bullied gay teen, and his attempt to walk across the United States. I was totally unaware of the story, so it had a lot of emotional impact. If you are familiar with the story, please don't mention it outside of spoilers - I'd like other people to have the same opportunity to have the emotional experience I did. The non-impressive film was Snake Eyes. A whole bunch of action, that had absolutely no emotional impact, and didn't generate any excitement. It probably had 30 times the budget of something like Nobody, but a tiny fraction of the excitement.
Caught both Space Jam 2 and Black Widow at the drive in. We didn't really want to see SJ2, but it was part of the double feature and it was enjoyable enough. I liked Black Widow also, but I had my gripes with it (the Taskmaster fights looked awesome but they terribly twisted the identity and the background of the villain for this movie and it was crap I thought). Spoiler I believe she'll be appearing on the Hawkeye show that will eventually be on Disney+, is what that was setting up.
I saw Snake Eyes yesterday and enjoyed it. I am sure I am coming at it from a very different perspective than anyone else following this thread - I don’t follow comic books, have no interest in the dozens of intertwining stories of this genre, and in my world, GI Joe was a doll who was meant to represent a soldier. I went to see this film because 1) I like Henry Golding and was curious to see how he would fare in a role like this, and 2) the trailer looked interesting, set in scenic Japan. I thought it was a good film. Henry did a fine job, the story held my interest, and the Japanese scenery was lovely. High art and important cinema? No way. An enjoyable couple of hours on a summer afternoon? Definitely.
The last film I saw at the cinema was "Darkest Hour" way back in January 2018. I did see it at my local cinema, the wonderful "Woolton Picture House" opened in the late 1920s. As I commented to my son at the time, "Just think people sat here in 1940 and watched the newsreel images, used in the film, when it truly was a very dark hour for our country" The cinema was threatened with closure during the pandemic but as been saved by a Gofundme appeal. CINEMA HISTORY, Woolton Picture House
Haven't updated this in a while. We've been going, but we make sure we're in the least populated theaters - I don't think there's been anybody closer than 20 ft from us at any of the screenings. Last night we saw a sneak preview from AMC called Copshop. Frank Grillo plays a sleazeball who gets himself arrested to escape the hitman coming after him played by Gerard Butler. It's a pretty basic action movie, set in a small town's police department, but it was really enjoyable. Totally worth seeing for a rival hitman played by Toby Huss. We've seen other films, both new ones like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (which looked astonishing in Dolby Cinema) and older films like the first Harry Potter movie, and United 93, which we never saw the first time around.
