I had never seen Walk Hard and it's been on my list forever. rented it on amazon last night and had a blast watching it. laugh out loud funny. It helps that I know the movie Walk the Line pretty well, but couldn't believe the number of people who made cameos in it. And just the right amount of satire, Apatow and company hit all the right notes on this one. easily 9/10
rented Black Robe on amazon last night. Jesuit priest trying to convert the Hurons to Christianity in the 1600s. Really well done, hard to describe. The film has apparently been praised as depicting Native Americans more accurately than just about any movie. 8/10
Just finished this Swedish foreign film on Amazon Prime. It's got drama, dark humor, sadness, heartfelt moments, and a good story. I'd give it an 8.5 of 10. You do have to read subtitles if you don't speak Swedish.
I am thinking about giving Vanilla Sky another try, but it may bee too late. I did not get it the first time.
haha i once went through looking for high audience skews. they're missing some good ones, for instance...
Saw Voyagers yesterday, set up and overall premise is solid but a bland cast with a plot that's pretty much Lord of Flies in space..... C
I always got Magnolia confused with Vanilla Sky -- a lot of strange Tom Cruise movies around 2000 (I thought Magnolia was terrible btw).
rewatched Malcolm X for the first time since it came out--had to spread it out over a couple of nights though. It really holds up well, although I can see some point behind some of the critics who argued Spike Lee followed a fairly predictable structure in putting it together. that said, the period elements of it are fantastic, and Denzel Washington is fantastic (still). easily a 9/10, really holds up and still powerful. on HBO Max
I picked 3 movies to watch on Netflix lately. Must be a bad week for picking movies with happy endings. I wouldn't call any of them great, but pretty good. I'd give all three 7.8 of 10. I definitely liked A Man Called Ove better than all three of these. Into the Wild Our Souls at Night Concrete Cowboy.
watched The Sand Pebbles last night on HBO Max and really enjoyed it. 1966 Steve McQueen film, McQueen picked up his only Oscar nomination for this role. He plays a ship's engineer in the 1920s on a US gunship patrolling Chinese waters. Didn't know much about the history of this period of time, nor anything about the film itself. Held up pretty well given when it was made, just a tiny bit lacking overall in the character development department, but that's common I think of movies from the 60s. Sort of McQueen acting likeMcQueen, but he was good. Richard Attenborough is in it as well. Three hours long, didn't feel overly long. Mostly filmed on board a replica of the ship that was built for the film. 8/10, worth watching.
Into the Wild was quite good. Based on Jon Krakauer's book. Sad, but well done. I also saw Concrete Cowboy... and thought the good parts (Idris Elba, Lorraine Toussaint) outweighed the bad parts (Caleb McLaughlin).
Yeah, they were all good, and if I ranked them Into the Wild was my favorite, but yes, a very sad story. Concrete Cowboy was my least favorite. It was good, but I liked the acting and scenery better in the other two. Just a preference really. I did like the story of Concrete Cowboy. I found it interesting, and enjoyed the interviews at the end of the real Fletcher Street cowboys.
I watched a documentary last night called Cannibal Island on Amazon Prime. Boy, Stalin was one sick ruler. What a horrifying story of the treatment of immigrants, rounding up of innocent people, and shipping them off to remote locations. The barbaric cannibalism was horrifying. Kind of slow, but really interesting.
