Talk About Movies: Part 4

That's what makes America Great... Chivalry is dead.

John isn't a little bitch... so why you treating him like a bitch?

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how is that for musings.

The Descendants is my favorite Payne movie. So great.

Guys, I'm not offended at all. I think MSchu knows I love Paris, Texas. But I prefer Wings of Desire.

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Nebraska for me.
As a Midwesterner, finally a movie I'm familiar with all the characters and foibles represented. (Yes, I'm often the Midwesterner on the couch not getting the joke)

I shouldn't write this, but I will anyway because I see myself in Payne's films in so many ways.

My wife died twenty years ago. I spent nearly a year of our time together driving to hospitals. She was diabetic from the time she was three years old and suffered through all that can be suffered by diabetics: a quadruple bypass at 39 years old, femoral bypasses, kidney failure, and a host of other complications.

I remained stoic much of the time throughout all this, mostly for the kids when they were young and later when they were older. But for myself as well because this is how men are supposed to act.

In some ways that helped. Maybe in other ways it didn't. I still don't know.

A year or so before she died she had me sit down with her. She told me she knew she would die well before me. She told me what she wanted. I listened, just listened without saying a word. Maybe this is what men are supposed to do and too many don't.

I never had to make the decision the character had to make in The Descendants. I know I could have because that's what men are supposed to do.

I'm not special and don't want sympathy. Too many of us bottle up our emotions. Does it help? You tell me.

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I think Bruce Dern's character knows exactly what he is doing. He knows he hadn't won a million. We all have our reasons. Payne does as well. Our lives need humor despite everything.

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Black Bag - very efficient spy thriller. Typically glam. Every spy lives in a home that's way more expensive than their government salaries could allow.

Fassbender is cold as ****. Blanchett is, uh, cold as ****. But they love each other. I think? Not sure either of them are entirely sane.

My (straight) man crush on Rege-Jean Page continues. He is a beautiful human being.

♥

I always read it this way. One of the delights of old age is ****ing with people.

As far as emotions go, I assume it's all about evolutionary advantage. If you don't bottle them up it may impede one's ability to think and act.

Favorite Bruce Dern moment.

So not Nebraska: The Tyranny of Fine Print

John, thank you for sharing.

I know someone who's dad seems to be going through a form of dementia. Recommended Nebraska to him, but warned it might be a little close to the bone.

I was surprised how much the Descendants worked for me. Never been through any of that, but felt like I got some of what Clooney's character was going through.

Thank you for sharing, John. I often think about how much our own lived experiences shape our enjoyment (or displeasure) of movies. Anytime a movie has a manic/bipolar character, it hits me super hard because my mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a very late age. It made a lot of sense at the time and answered a lot of questions for us. I'm still unsure if Silver Linings Playbook dials it up a few notches, but there were times when living with my mother felt much like it did for Cooper's parents in that movie. I don't think it's ever said in Hereditary, but Collette's outburst at the dining room table definitely felt real and had to come from a personal place. It wasn't uncommon for my mother to have those kinds of outbursts. At the same time, my brother told me that people with bipolar disorder also experience higher highs, and that rings true with my mother. When she's happy she's in the clouds. Dancing on her deck, even if her phone has no charge and she has no music, she loves to dance.

Black Bag, Steven Soderberg, 2025

Another crackling thriller by Soderberg, who does his directs/edits/shoots his own movie thing yet again.

Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett play impossibly stylish spies for British Intelligence who are also a committed married couple. Fassbender is given a lead that one of five people in his agency has betrayed Great Britain by selling a doomsday-type McGuffin to Russia - and his wife is one of the five.

So he has a dinner party with the other five that includes two men and two women who are apparently sleeping with one another at various times. A parlor game ensues. Who's the turncoat?

This is fantastic, only 90 minutes long, and thoroughly entertaining. Very adult, like I said - stylish - as if Tom Ford was the set designer and wardrobe person.

This is like a spy thriller by way of Edward Albee...as if Nick & Nora somehow found themselves in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolfe by way of John le Carre.

Deliciously duplicitous.

I'd like to see, oh, about a hundred more of these with Fassbender and Blanchett. So much fun.

I completely agree with this assessment...

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I need some Soderberg in my life Dom, Will See.
was this shot on a cell phone?

Summer of 1982...

Conan the Barbarian
Mad Max II
Rocky III
Poltergeist
Star Trek II Wrath of Kahn
E.T.
Blade Runner
The Thing
TRON
The Secret of NIMH
Fast Times at Ridgemont High

what an amazing list... Blade Runner and The Thing were released on the same day.

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On a side note... the test screening for The Thing was held at Red Rock theater in Las Vegas, NV

Criterion flash sale for the next 24 hours. 50% off discs! I picked up Okja and Blue Velvet on 4K, and Parasite on blu-ray.

best film I've seen this year

I'm full up on the Criterion offerings... and since this doesnt apply to pre orders I am SOL on Mishima and Sorcerer.

The beginning of an era. I grew up on Don Bluth's movies but didn't realize how much he dominated the decade until somewhat recently.

i feel like don bluth films had far better plotlines than disney but there was always something offputting about it

also much darker than disney

They both made movies with talking animals, but Bluth's were more realistic. Disney adapted fairy tales. Bluth made Shawshank with cartoon squirrels.

With Disney, I think it depends on the era. The early films were pretty dark.

I watched Avicii-I'm Tim on Netflix yesterday. It held my interest, despite barely knowing who he was before this. It's an old old story played out new again with this gifted young kid from Sweden who met a tragic early end. Fascinating subculture btw, these masses of kids in their Dionysian frenzies, bouncing around to this throbbing disco (they call it emd now!) music. Like a cult in a lot of ways.

But he was a nice kid, a good looking genius too. Almost like an angel.

Y Tu Mama Tambien - Right there on Netflix. I'm sure everyone here has seen it, but my 1st complete viewing. Early Cuaron road trip movie. Explicit. Sensual and comedic. Sad/Tragic as well.

what the **** is this