Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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Raxivace
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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Gendo wrote:61. Holiday Affair - A cute little Christmas movie. Unfortunately it contains one of my most disliked plot devices; that of a romance that starts while one party is already in a relationship.
Well, it wouldn't exactly be a Holiday Affair without the actual affair part now would it?
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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R39. The Quick and the Dead - I've seen this one a lot. A good mix of an actual western and a send-up of westerns. Great cast; and a lot of fun Sam Raiminess.

57. The World's End - Awesome! Edgar Wright continues to amaze.
Simon Pegg was particularly fantastic; his character was so much fun to watch throughout. It was also made better by me knowing literally nothing at all about the film before it started. A few minutes in they had me thinking “as, do it's a Harold and Kumar style bar hop film, ok". Then that once scene happens, and I have no idea what's going on. When he kills the first blank in the bathroom; it took me a while to figure out if this was something all in his head or if that's actually where the movie was going. Similar to Scott Pilgrim in that way. Not sure if I liked the very end as much; it felt like it maybe took things too far. But still, the music, acting, editing, and dialog are all big winners. Might not like is as much as Scott Pilgrim; but that's a really high bar.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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R40. A Christmas Story - It may be overhyped, but I still like it. The dialog is so wonderfully over-the-top. Not sure if I watch this every single year, but more years than not I do.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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I don't know that it's really "overhyped". Like I dunno anyone that really loves-loves it, but its enjoyable enough.

Watch A Christmas Story 2 if you want a bad time. Now there's a real stinker.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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Raxivace wrote:I don't know that it's really "overhyped". Like I dunno anyone that really loves-loves it, but its enjoyable enough.

Watch A Christmas Story 2 if you want a bad time. Now there's a real stinker.
From a year ago:
Gendo wrote:107. A Christmas Story 2 - This definitely didn't need to exist. It was just a really poor rehash of everything from the first one. To say something nice about it; I liked the end ok. The one thing I was kind of hoping to see was older Scut Farkus, and he wasn't even in it!
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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Agh, I completely blanked on you seeing that already. [facepalm]
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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R41. A Christmas Carol (2009) - The Zemeckis animated one. Some good stuff, some bad. The dialog is great; from what I've read it's one of the more faithful adaptations. There are some great visuals. But the style seems a bit confused; the sudden bursts of over-the-top tone in both the acting and the action are a bit jarring.

58. The Nine Lives of Christmas - A Hallmark movie; and not bad, considering that. A basic cute love story. But it avoids a lot of the tropes of most Hallmark Christmas movies. It's not even that much of a Christmas movie. Nothing special; but harmless enough.

R42. The Social Network - Great stuff; love the acting.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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It's been a lonnngggg time since I've last seen The Social Network but its one of the defining films of the 21st century to me.

David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin is not a combination that should work but somehow does.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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R43. Trapped in Paradise - Kind of funny Nick Cage Christmas movie. Not as good as I remembered. Great premise though.

R44. Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Forgettable. I may have liked this more when I first saw it, but this time around I just found myself mostly disinterested.

R45. Star Wars: The Last Jedi - I like this one. There are several stupid things that happen which are annoying; but I think there's enough good to make up for it. Kylo's character and his relationship with both Luke and Rei are good. The whole throne room scene is great. It seems that the number one complaint I hear is that they ruined Luke's character, and I don't get this at all. Running away and hiding after failure is literally what Jedi do throughout the entire franchise. But a lot of the other complaints are valid.

Tomorrow I'll see The Rise of Skywalker.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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59. Glass - Disappointing. I enjoyed the third act; and James McAvoy was great again. But the entire main plot about a doctor trying to treat the 3 guys was just stupid and boring. I didn't care at all about it. And it also made no sense; when did David ever claim that he believed he was a super-hero? He's not the type to go around claiming to be a super-hero; even if he's acting as a vigilante. Surely he would have just told the doctor "no, I don't think I'm a super-hero; I just wanted to help people who were in trouble." And then what they did with his character at the end was just plain bad.

60. Escape Room (2019) - Enjoyable. About what I expected; a fun time watching people trying to escape death traps. Cube did it better I suppose; but this also had some fun Cabin in the Woods vibe to it.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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61. Mission Impossible: Fallout - Pretty good. I couldn't really remember Rogue Nation at all; they're starting to blend together. But this one had some great fights, suspense, and twists.

62.Song of the Thin Man - The last one. Nothing particularly new here; it was fine but I'm not going to remember it later.

63. Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker - It was a mess, but I enjoyed it. Similar to pretty much all of the others, I enjoyed it during the movie; but looking back on it I mostly remember the bad stuff. It was so painfully obvious that the trilogy didn't have a grand vision from the start; and they just made stuff up as they went along. The movie was too long; I can think of a couple entire scenes that could have just been cut. But there was a lot of good action and suspense; it was fun, even if not good. As with the previous two, Kylo Ren was the best part.

64. Do the Right Thing - Wow... I didn't know where the movie was headed for the first half, which made me worried that it was going to be one of those movies where "nothing" happens. But then the tension just continues to build; and by the end it was clear why so many people talk about this movie. Definitely one of the few movies that just leaves you stuck in your chair, contemplating, when it ends.

Interesting fact, Danny Aiello, who played Sal, died just a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know this when I chose to watch it.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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Yeah, Do the Right Thing is an amazing accomplishment. Sad that it feels as relevant now as it did when it came out, if not moreso.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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Last movie of the year:

65. The Nice Guys - Good. Maybe not as good as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but good. Russell Crowe was especially good. The story itself was intriguing; never quite sure where it was going.

Hoping to get a lot more in this year.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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Um, going back through to find my top picks of the year... where the heck is #43 - #47?

Ugh, I must have misread 42 as 47 when writing that one post. Why did nobody correct me? Time to edit them all to fix it.
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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With only 65 new films this year, I just barely had a top 10. When I went back through and picked out the ones for consideration, it happened to be exactly 10 of them:

The Life of Brian
Inside Man
Hereditary
The Haunting (1963)
Patriots Day
Avengers: Endgame
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Seven Psychopaths
The World's End
Do the Right Thing
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Re: Gendo, 2019, movies, etc.

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Gendo wrote:64. Do the Right Thing -
Great, great film. Masterpiece, even. Shame it doesn't seem like Spike Lee ever came close to equaling it because even today it's a testament to such an original, visionary, cinematic voice both in terms of its visuals and story/character/narrative elements.
Gendo wrote:R42. The Social Network - Great stuff; love the acting.
I wrote a review for that one back in the day: https://fpscinema.wordpress.com/2011/02 ... l-network/
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