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Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
I love those food scenes in Goodfellas. The "bust out" scenes with the restaurant one of the highlights as well.
Yeah Casino deserves more praise. I like it now a lot more than I did back then. I can't stand Sharon Stone but she hit a home run here.
Yeah, I left out the food scenes they are great. That one scene in the restaurant where he (Scorcese) tracks the characters as they go through there is used all the time now and is very famous.
I love Stone's prime from like 1991-1995. She took chances after she hit it big with Basic Instinct.
I'm going to watch Hereditary. You guys are making it way too interesting. Plus I like Toni Collette anyway.
Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
When I say the third act is absurd, I don’t mean bad, just… whoa, wtf!!??? Also, it might be the best performance I’ve ever seen from Toni Collette.
Watch it, I’m interested in what your thoughts are on it.
Speaking of early Stone, I just watched Salvador. Holy shit, that was great. It’s really on the nose, but still powerful. Made the same year as Platoon!
Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
Watched some lesser De Palma.
Domino - Probably his worst. Opening sequence is the only thing that's barely watchable. Like he just gave up after that. Suddenly you find yourself in a Muslim terror plot.
Sisters - Decent idea, not very well executed. The beauty of the actress playing the lead character was the main take away.
Obsession - Just a mental plot. Older handsome dude is obsessed with his young wife, she dies in a kidnapping plot orchestrated by his business partner, who then proceeds to set him up in a romantic relationship with his daughter (who's in on this scheme). Dude thinks his daughter is dead so when he discovers she is alive he is ecstatic and they have a big hugging scene at the end. Only thing I could think of was the fact they must have had sex.
Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
Hereditary - The first 90 minutes of this film... flawless. It just goes completely off the rails towards the end with a ridiculous climax.
I just love how it nails family dysfunction in the first half. The way they walk on eggshells around the mother and how a black cloud hangs over everything... especially that scene at the dinner table.
When I say the third act is absurd, I don’t mean bad, just… whoa, wtf!!??? Also, it might be the best performance I’ve ever seen from Toni Collette.
Watch it, I’m interested in what your thoughts are on it.
My thoughts are closer to Lofton here. They totally nail how dysfunctional (mainly because of mental illness) this family is. And they do it in a believable way too. There's a lot of distance and emptiness and lying going on this house. Also the house was a character to me.
Agree on Colette nailing the role. I love how you can kind of slowly see her falling apart. It culminates with that dinner scene where she totally loses it and rips into the Peter. At that point, I basically stopped treating her (and Peter) as an objective narrator. I thought most of the scenes she was basically hallucinating stuff. That's what I thought the Heridtary part referred to. That mental illness just ran through that side of the family. It's probably why the Dad is the only one who is normal here.
The ending is weird to me. Because if they wanted to they really, really should have introduced that "aspect" earlier. I would have found the last five mins more convincing. As it is, I was like WTF happened here? It's too bad because the psychological drama aspects of this are great.
On Obsession, I've seen it two or three times and it bores the shit out of me, aside from the ending at the airport. I don't know if it's the subpar acting or a bad script. I just get nothing from it and don't get why some people think it's one of DePalma's best. I'd rather watch Femme Fatale or Passion over obsession.
Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
Good take. I think the third act works because it’s actually terrifying, and it succeeds where 99% of modern horror films fail. It goes from psychological horror to outright “holy shit, wtf is THAT” horror pretty quickly.
Obsession has a ridiculous plot (it’s ripping off Hitchcock, who didn’t give two shits about plot) and John Lithgow is absolutely awful. The whole thing rests on the charisma of your actors (Hitchcock!) and it was terribly miscast. Had someone like Burt Reynolds played the lead it would have been interesting. And yeah,
And Oldboy is the better version of this film.
Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
The ending is weird to me. Because if they wanted to they really, really should have introduced that "aspect" earlier. I would have found the last five mins more convincing. As it is, I was like WTF happened here? It's too bad because the psychological drama aspects of this are great.
There's hints of the cult sprinkled throughout the film. You'd pick up on them in a second viewing. It doesn't really make that climax any better though....
You should watch his follow-up Midsommar. It's one of those love it or hate it films...no middle ground. I'm in the latter group.
Basic Instinct - I liked it but I realized something on this viewing.....if you take Michael Douglas out of this film, it's nothing more than one of those "After Dark" films on Cinemax.
The first half is great. Unfortunately, the plot bites off a tad more than it can chew. They don't elaborate enough on the dynamic between Stone and Tripplehorn's characters. That ending does not resolve it.
At 47 years old....the sex isn't necessary. We only need one sex scene to show they're together. The date rape scene wasn't required either.
Colors - I hadn't watched this since seeing it at the Drive In back in 88... double feature with The Dead Pool. It was ok but there's not much of a story being told here. It just moved from scene to scene of police brutality and gang violence...with Duvall as good cop against Penn's bad cop.
To those who couldn't watch Reality Bites on that site, it's coming to Tubi on May 1st.
Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
Steel Magnolias - Such a great movie. It also has one of the most perfect casts ever.
A sequel unnecessary...but I would've loved for this cast to be in one more film.
I miss movies like this.
The Birdcage - Other than Torch Song Trilogy, this is my favorite gay movie. Its wacky how Steve Martin almost got Robin Williams role and Williams would've played Nathan Lane's character.
Totally different vibe.
Presumed Innocent - This was pretty damn good but I didn't like the twist. I think it would've been better had they made Harrison Ford be the one who killed her, the case still gets tossed, and his wife finds evidence at the end.
On the other hand...Ford doesn't play a very convincing bad guy.
Neither does Bonnie Bedelia.... 
The River Wild - A serviceable drama. Damn good casting....too good. As great as Meryl Streep is, I don't find her very convincing in this type of lead role.
Cinderella Man - Not a big Russell Crowe fan but he's tolerable here. I can't stand Renee Zellweger in anything. This is a great story but it drags a tad too long.
Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
“ The Birdcage - Other than Torch Song Trilogy, this is my favorite gay movie. Its wacky how Steve Martin almost got Robin Williams role and Williams would've played Nathan Lane's character.”
Had no idea! Nathan Lane was great, I don’t even think Robin could top it.
Re: Most Recent Movie You've Seen
Presumed Innocent - This was pretty damn good but I didn't like the twist. I think it would've been better had they made Harrison Ford be the one who killed her, the case still gets tossed, and his wife finds evidence at the end.
On the other hand...Ford doesn't play a very convincing bad guy.
Neither does Bonnie Bedelia....
I thought this was too long and I think the book explained it better. I'd point out that Raul Julia is really good as the lawyer who is trying to get the Ford character off.
Pulp Fiction: this one never fails to entertain me, to the point where I wonder why I don't watch it more. On this viewing I discovered that Vincent Vega is kind of an idiot. You can see him falling in love with the Mia Wallace character (or is it the other way around). Gives the entire convo earlier about the foot massages different significance. It's hilarious that her OD'ing on heroin was convienient for him. Even though it's a cameo, Eric Stolz as Lance is funny as hell. How did this not win more Oscars? This is like Samuel Jackson's best performance. So many memorable lines and scenes. There's also a certain storyline continuity that if you pay close attention is kind of cool. The infamous watch was retrieved from a pawn shop in Knoxville,TN. When Marcellus and Butch unfortuantely end up in Zed's shop, there was a picture of TN on the wall.
A Better Tomorrow II--plot is garbage and nearly ruined the film for me. The scenes in NYC are pretty uneccesary and tedious. The only break I'll give John Woo is that the original cut of this was supposed to be 3 hours. Still the end shootout is very good, so are most of the acting performances.
Three Days of the Condor: probably my favorite 70's conspiracy film. I just go back to this one more than say Marathon Man or The Parralax View. It's also very 70s which doesn't hurt. From the music to stuff like the old school buses. A perfect post Watergate film that highlights the distrust that people had in the government. Also it just works as an "innocent man on the run" film. I never realized how great Joubert (the Max Van Sydow character) is. He's DGAF about anything except the money. And he has an admiration and respect for Joe (Redford character) and how unpredictable he is. Gives the last conversation they had a different meaning to me.
Oh on Oldboy, another lasting legacy is that all the modern action films kind of rip off that sequence where Oh-Dae Su goes nuts and dispatches like 8 henchmen with only the hammer. John Wick is basically that (action sequences) + add in some Hong Kong gun play stuff.
