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Greenland (2021)
Meh, first half is "how to make the wrong choice, continuously". I liked the idea, and some events in the second part were quite entertaining. Overall, your typical disaster movie.
 
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My router finally gave up, so no streaming for a couple of days. Luckily there's still good old DVDs.

Kathryn Bigelow: Near Dark (1987), starring Adrian Pasdar, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, et al.

Quite possibly still my favorite modern (such as that term can be applied to a movie from the eighties, but whatever) vampire movie. Not that the v-word is uttered in the movie even once, but still. The story deals with Caleb, who on one fateful night out on the town gets bitten by the alluring Mae. Serious consequences ensue.

Much of the cast portraying the roving band of, well, vampire-like creatures was lifted from Aliens, apparently that was suggested by James Cameron who would later marry Bigelow. They all deliver great performances, but the standout is without a doubt Bill Paxton's Severen. Brutal, funny, just all around a fun character and nice portrayal.

Great stuff!

Kevin Reynolds: One Eight Seven (1997), starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kelly Rowan, Clifton Collins Jr., et al.

It's been a very long time since I've seen this one, and there's some wacky aspect ratio related shenanigans going on with the disc, my player or my TV, or the combination of all three, but still, an enjoyable watch. Sam Jackson plays the role of Trevor Garfield, a teacher who gets stabbed by one of his students. A year and a half later he is called to substitute at a school where both the students, and some of the staff don't seem to care much for what goes on during class. Or outside of it. To put it lightly.

Some really good performances here, and as it says in the end credits the movie was written by a teacher, Scott Yagemann. Who, in an interview, has said that about 90% of what happens in the movie has happened to him, or one of his colleagues. Props to all teachers no matter where they teach, can't be an easy job.

Good movie, nice and fitting soundtrack, and mostly good acting. Still not a 100% sure about the ending, but it works.
 
The Domestics (2018)
What a nice survivalist action drama! Finally a movie of this genre in which the characters don't make the wrong choice over and over. Somewhat realistic, somewhat unrealistic, this movie truly delivers. Highly recommended.
 
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I watched The Woman in the Window, it does keep your attention with the all the plot changes. I would recommend.
I’ve read this movie takes it cues from other previous thrillers, like Rear Window, among others. Would you agree?

Update: We just watched this, I saw Rear Window and Vertigo influences. Another movie like this which is good is Disturbia (2007).

This was an ok movie. The issue in most movies like this is the character sees something, and it’s an uphill battle getting people to believe them and the audience is allied with the character, until there is the reveal.

In this movie, my critique is the character has some issues, so watching this I had little confidence in what I/the character was seeing, no character loyalty, not much of a clue, except I did nail one of the characters, but I can’t say who :), so I just floated along with the story to see what happened. :)
 
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I’ve read this movie takes it cues from other previous thrillers, like Rear Window, among others. Would you agree?

Update: We just watched this, I saw Rear Window and Vertigo influences. Another movie like this which is good is Disturbia (2007).

This was an ok movie. The issue in most movies like this is the character sees something, and it’s an uphill battle getting people to believe them and the audience is allied with the character, until there is the reveal.

In this movie, my critique is the character has some issues, so watching this I had little confidence in what I/the character was seeing, no character loyalty, not much of a clue, except I did nail one of the characters, but I can’t say who :), so I just floated along with the story to see what happened. :)

Ive seen around 30 min of it. So far it's very good. Some surprises here and there.
 
I’ve read this movie takes it cues from other previous thrillers, like Rear Window, among others. Would you agree?

Update: We just watched this, I saw Rear Window and Vertigo influences. Another movie like this which is good is Disturbia (2007).

This was an ok movie. The issue in most movies like this is the character sees something, and it’s an uphill battle getting people to believe them and the audience is allied with the character, until there is the reveal.

In this movie, my critique is the character has some issues, so watching this I had little confidence in what I/the character was seeing, no character loyalty, not much of a clue, except I did nail one of the characters, but I can’t say who :), so I just floated along with the story to see what happened. :)
I would agree with you, Rear Window is one of my favorite thrillers.
 
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Army-of-the-Dead.jpg


This was probably the most coherent Zach Snyder movie I have ever seen. I usually can't make it through his movies.

The plot was still a mess, but I enjoyed it.
 
Army-of-the-Dead.jpg


This was probably the most coherent Zach Snyder movie I have ever seen. I usually can't make it through his movies.

The plot was still a mess, but I enjoyed it.

Any zombie movie gets too boring for me. I’m hoping to gather some courage over the weekend to watch this. Let’s see.
 
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Quite liked Brightburn; kind of like if Superman was evil. Very graphic, decent story and good acting. Think it’s either Netflix or Prime.
 
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Leaning towards a rewatch of Girl With a Pearl Earring, a subtle and slow-moving film that I like a lot. Of course critical attention was focused on Colin Firth as the 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, and on Scarlett Johansson as a new maid in the Vermeer household. A likely underappreciated role is that of Vermeer's mother-in-law Maria Thins, played superbly by English actress Judy Parfitt.

In the film and in real life Maria was the real head of the Vermeer household, no matter if usually behind scenes, and she was perhaps the only one --short of the maids-- who had a clue about how real life goes and how to make things work out so as to keep food on the table. After all, Vermeer left us only about 35 paintings, taking forever to decide what to paint next (and another forever to get each painting done to his own satisfaction), and his wife Catharina seemed hell bent on dividing her time between being insanely jealous and providing the family yet another mouth to feed after managing to entice an exasperated Vermeer yet again to her bed.

That was the canvas Maria had to work with, keeping the household from ending up shamefully bankrupt like a neighboring family. Unlike the maids though, Maria was past struggling with the feelings of rage that living on the brink of insufficiency can provoke. She just dealt with how things were and managed to overlay a modicum of order on all the potential for chaos in that household in order to keep up appearances and so not unduly alarm Vermeer's chief patron, a despicable character but a necessary pillar of the family's wellbeing.

The movie seems all about showing us where choice --and sometimes lack of choice-- operate to form a path through life, as illustrious or shabby as aspects of any part of it all may be. It also gave brilliant glimpses of the quiet moments of satisfaction that can be found by anyone in any walk of life, in focusing on achievements that run to "all the little things".

Virtually every character in the movie (and Tracy Chevalier's speculative novel which underlay it: we don't in fact know anything about Griet, the fictional maid played by Johansson, who becomes the model for the painting referenced by the title of the film ) is developed to showcase process and effects of choicefulness or indecision or the resigned cul-de-sacs of "how else would you expect this to go?". The cinematography does more than justice to the use of light that is such a strong aspect of Vermeer's painting. All in all the film remains one that I like to rewatch at least annually.

Think it's currently streaming on Prime and Hulu... also available at various venues to rent or buy.
 
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Quite liked Brightburn; kind of like if Superman was evil. Very graphic, decent story and good acting. Think it’s either Netflix or Prime.

I also watched Brightburn (on Netflix) some time ago knowing nothing about it, and also liked it.

Yesterday evening was an ten star movie night, each of the titles deserving a 5/5. On the docket were a couple of old favorites, namely Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003) and William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).

Both amazing movies. I have a feeling I've written about both of these in this thread before, so just a little something about TLaDiLA that occured to me. Interesting to see a movie about Secret Service agents doing something other than providing protection for the President. I did some serious research about this (the first paragraph on the Secret Service Wikipedia entry), and apparently until 2003 the Secret Service was a part of the Department of Treasury that deals with funny money, among other things. Interesting stuff indeed. And even more apparently the agency depicted in the film actually had to track down some of the extremely realistic phoney bills that were produced during the filming of the movie and somehow "escaped the set". And that car chase is awesome too, but it's a Friedkin movie, so it's not that big of a surprise.
 
I also watched Brightburn (on Netflix) some time ago knowing nothing about it, and also liked it.

Yesterday evening was an ten star movie night, each of the titles deserving a 5/5. On the docket were a couple of old favorites, namely Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003) and William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).

Both amazing movies. I have a feeling I've written about both of these in this thread before, so just a little something about TLaDiLA that occured to me. Interesting to see a movie about Secret Service agents doing something other than providing protection for the President. I did some serious research about this (the first paragraph on the Secret Service Wikipedia entry), and apparently until 2003 the Secret Service was a part of the Department of Treasury that deals with funny money, among other things. Interesting stuff indeed. And even more apparently the agency depicted in the film actually had to track down some of the extremely realistic phoney bills that were produced during the filming of the movie and somehow "escaped the set". And that car chase is awesome too, but it's a Friedkin movie, so it's not that big of a surprise.

Brightburn was shockingly disturbing. Like, to the point where it was questionable to even be in theaters from a podcast I was listening to. Good acting, but nothing what I was expecting. I might rewatch that one this weekend.
 
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I watched some great movies this week since I’m on vacation: Blade Runner 2049, The Fugitive, Romero (with Raul Julia) and Dredd which was awesome.
I’ve seen all these movies before except Dredd. I hate myself that I never saw it earlier. It’s really one of those films that leaves you wanting more.
 
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The Girl Next door [2004]
74858A02-AB14-4D1C-A16A-CDE287880534.jpeg

The original movie poster I wanted to use, was a bit too inappropriate, so I chose this one being a little bit more neutral toned.

But for anyone that has watched this movie with Elisha Cuthbert, knows how strikingly beautiful she is (And I mean, _killer_ looks). I’m not really one that has ‘Hollywood crushes’, but all together; she can be very hypnotic.

The plot is straightforward, The movie is about a girl who moves next-door to a senior student, [played by Emile Hirsch], and she is getting out of the porn industry, and wants to live a normal lifestyle, but yet he starts to make friends with Elisha Cuthberts character, but ultimately falls for her, and she has to make a decision which lifestyle she wants to choose. The movie also has Timothy Olymphiant, who is also very good, witty and funny.

This whole movie was perfectly put together, from the comedy, to the actual love part of the story, and it’s unfortunate, because they don’t make these types of comedies anymore, but altogether, I’ve probably seen this one at least six times or more, it’s that good.

If you haven’t watched this movie, it really is a 10 out of 10 with me, and that comes down to the acting, the plot and the whole movie was just perfectly scripted.
 
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