What's the latest movie you've seen?

[robhr]

Ghost in the Shell. The live action one with Scarlett Johansson.

It was fine. Neat to look at.

I'm not a big anime guy but the anime was better.

[jadis]

Rewatched Hanake's Caché on my laptop. What can you even say. Wonderful film, confronting us with heaps of ambiguities about the past and the present and technology and ourselves that we want to resolve but can't.

[Janszoon]

Flamin' Hot
Rags-to-riches biopic about the guy who invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos. It's not mind blowing, but it's very upbeat and heartwarming and it doesn't take itself too seriously. I enjoyed it.

[DJChameleon]

Been meaning to watch Flamin Hot

[Lexi Darling]

I didn't know about that movie. We should probably watch it, Mr. Waffles loves using Flamin' Hot Cheetos as an instrument of punishment for me so I'm sure it would be a good watch.

[Guybrush]

Saw this:



Which I've known about forever, but which I hadn't really seen before today. I've seen stills and clips over the years, but never the whole thing.

I read The Disaster Artist about Tommy Wiseau and the production of his 2003 movie The Room. Of course Tommy found lots of inspiration in James Dean and Rebel.. so that made me want to check it out. And of course it's always been there as one of the classics I hadn't seen.

It is funny because I can, in retrospect, see some of Tommy's attempted mimicry. You're tearing me apart!! Jim, Judy and Plato's dynamic in Rebel is somewhat similar to Johnny, Lisa and Denny's dynamic in The Room, etc.

The story of Rebel.. was a bit messy and lackluster, I thought. We never really see the conflict between protagonist Jim and the gang resolve. The ending seems to be more about Plato, etc.

What makes it special are the performances which are very good and fun to watch. Natalie Wood is great as Judy and James Dean is magnetic and steals every scene, even if he isn't very convincing as a high schooler.

[Janszoon]

Saw this:



Which I've known about forever, but which I hadn't really seen before today. I've seen stills and clips over the years, but never the whole thing.

I read The Disaster Artist about Tommy Wiseau and the production of his 2003 movie The Room. Of course Tommy found lots of inspiration in James Dean and Rebel.. so that made me want to check it out. And of course it's always been there as one of the classics I hadn't seen.

It is funny because I can, in retrospect, see some of Tommy's attempted mimicry. You're tearing me apart!! Jim, Judy and Plato's dynamic in Rebel is somewhat similar to Johnny, Lisa and Denny's dynamic in The Room, etc.

The story of Rebel.. was a bit messy and lackluster, I thought. We never really see the conflict between protagonist Jim and the gang resolve. The ending seems to be more about Plato, etc.

What makes it special are the performances which are very good and fun to watch. Natalie Wood is great as Judy and James Dean is magnetic and steals every scene, even if he isn't very convincing as a high schooler.

I love that movie. It's amazing to me how they managed to get that much gay subtext into a movie in 1955.

[Guybrush]

I love that movie. It's amazing to me how they managed to get that much gay subtext into a movie in 1955.

Yes, it is interesting that Plato seems to be very confused, poor guy. And really, who wouldn't be gay for JD? 😄

[Guybrush]

Saw A Streetcar Named Desire from 1951.



Another one of those movies that it feels like anyone slightly interested in movies should've seen, but that I just didn't quite get around to (I also haven't seen Ben Hur or Lawrence of Arabia).

You've probably seen it, but if you haven't, it's based on a play by Tennessee Williams. The fanciful Blanche - who's given to flights of fancy and who likes poetry, gentlemen and fine clothes - is destitute, has to face reality and moves in with her sister Stella in skid row (or "the Quarter"). Stella also happens to be married with Blanche's complete opposite, the uncouth, brutish, impulsive and occasionally cruel Stanley.

It's a social drama with some great dialogue - really well written. The most magnetic performance is given by Marlon Brando as Stanley. He was quite handsome in his young age, though his character is occasionally despicable.

Kim Hunter is also great as Stella and Vivien Leigh is a really good Blanche. The latter has, by far, the most screentime.

While the performances are good, it did drag a little and I couldn't help but feel a little annoyed with Blanche as she retreats further into her fantasies and refuses to deal with the real world. She also reminds me somewhat of Diane from Cheers.

Still a good movie. Like Rebel.. which I forgot to rate, I'd say for me it's a:



And probably deserving of more.

[jadis]

Rewatched Hanake's Caché on my laptop. What can you even say. Wonderful film, confronting us with heaps of ambiguities about the past and the present and technology and ourselves that we want to resolve but can't.

Rethinking this one ever so slightly. A brilliantly done film, for sure, but not necessarily any longer buying the stuff I said about "heaps of ambiguities"... Maybe it's not as interesting as that after all. 

[Guybrush]

Rethinking this one ever so slightly. A brilliantly done film, for sure, but not necessarily any longer buying the stuff I said about "heaps of ambiguities"... Maybe it's not as interesting as that after all. 

I've not seen Cache myself, but have some Haneke movies on my to-do list.

You wouldn't happen to be a fan of Rainer Werner Fassbinder?

[jadis]

I've not seen Cache myself, but have some Haneke movies on my to-do list.

You wouldn't happen to be a fan of Rainer Werner Fassbinder?

Haven't seen anything by him yet somehow though I've always wanted to watch his versions of Nabokov's Despair and Genet's Querelle de Brest.

Also I remember when a friend of mine who worked at the uni media library took out the Berlin Alexanderplatz boxset for a couple of weekends and was inviting me to join him and other friends and watch the whole thing but I had other things to do. We watched lots of films in his apartment back then but with Fassbinder it wasn't to be.

There's also this, by one of my favorite filmmakers, that only made me want to watch his stuff even more and I still haven't gone around to it

[Guybrush]

We're just dipping our toes in his filmography ourselves 🙂

Last movie we saw was Fassbinder's Angst essen Seele auf (or "Fear Eats the Soul" in purposefully incorrect German grammar) from 1974.



It's a romance / drama about an older German woman and a younger Moroccan male immigrant who get romantically entangled. There's a lot of pressure on their relationship, both external (wow are people casually racist) and internal. Overall, I felt the tone of the movie was uplifting.

I wanted to see it for a few reasons. The main one was because many think highly of it. I also thought it seemed interesting thematically and I caught on to the fact that El Hedi Salem (who plays Ali) was Fassbinder's partner at the time of filming. They later broke up the same year the movie came out. After that, Salem's alcoholism worsened and he stabbed (!) a few people. Fassbinder and others helped him to escape to France where he eventually hanged himself in jail in 1977, if I remember correctly. So.. there seems to be some crazy story related to this.

As for the movie, I liked it a lot. The actors were good. The story was unique and might be considered social realism for how it portrays and criticizes the racist attitudes of that time. It's also a great look into what Germany was like in the early 70s.

My wife is half German and really loved this and wants to see more german films, so I'm sure we're not done with Fassbinder or Haneke yet.

For myself and just rating how entertained I felt, I'd rate it:

[Guybrush]

By the way, we also recently rewatched The Room from 2003. I assume you all know it.



When Lisa tells her mother that Johnny had plans to adopt the severely weird and creepy Denny, my brain exploded. I completely lost it. It is so utterly stupid, I had this fit where I was laughing so hard and crying to the point where I was slightly worried I would pass out from a lack of oxygen. I couldn't breathe. I'd forgotten this adoption detail since our previous viewing and it caught me by surprise. Holy shit, I haven't laughed like that in years. 😄

I also noticed this time around how the script seems like it was written by a very cheap AI.

Man is The Room bad.. and in the best way possible.



Essential viewing!

[Guybrush]

Saw Oppenheimer 🙂

Very good movie. It seems it did everything right.

Slight spoilers!!

For myself, I was more interested in the development of the bomb, the physics, the consequences for the Japanese people after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the heavy water sabotage ops, the demon core and Cecil Kelley accidents, etc. There was a little less of such things and more about a sorta prosecution of Oppenheimer and whether or not he was a traitor. So it was about the drama surrounding him more than those other interesting things related or connected to him, which is definitely understandable.

For me, it was a:

I'd be up for a 4 hours director's cut implementing some of the stuff I missed 😄