Last movie you watched......

Haven't seen it yet. One of my favorite adaptations is Mazursky's. Raul Julia as Caliban looked like he was channeling Dionysus and Cookie Monster. This was not a bad thing.

 

"Most Dangerous Game" on Amazon Prime starring the always great Christoph Waltz and Liam Hemsworth. Cool twist on a very old story. This is a feature film compilation of a Quibi (remember that?) series.

 

If you can find it, 'Prospero's Books' is an interesting take on the 'Tempest' by Peter Greenaway.

And Gielgud.

 

Greenaway at his best.

 

We watched "Thirteen Lives" over the weekend. Typical Ron Howard excellence, successfully translating claustrophobia to the big screen.

 

On Netflix, Richard Linklater's Apollo 10 1/2, a wonderfully nostalgic tale of growing up in the Houston suburbs around the time of the moon landing. Really fun.

 

Found and watched this the other night.

Orson Welles' 'MacBeth'. Holds up.

Better than Joel Coen's, I think.

 

Coincidentally, this was on last night.

I have never quite warmed to it.

 

That cast! But I can see from the preview what you mean. Every time I see an adaptation that looks like someone is trying to do a blood, guts, and glory version with P. Craig Russell's filigreed sensibility, I'm reminded of why the Greeks left all of that stuff offstage. Unless it's an act of beautiful excess by someone like Taymor or Greenaway, there doesn't seem to be enough emotional content to manage a toehold in the worlds they try to build.

If you can find it, Welles' Othello was packaged with Thomas Blake Nelson's O. It's an interesting exercise in compare and contrast.

 

Nope- I’m a simpleton so some of the themes went over my head. Thus, I found it did not meet my expectations.

Spoiler alert









Too many fakes; too many abrupt changes (chapters); disappointing extra terrestrial.

 

I haven't seen Nope yet but plan to. I think Us is the strongest of his films so far.

Watched Apollo 10 1/2 yesterday. This is easily his best use of rotoscoped animation. It was fun if a little self-indulgent in Waking Life and felt pointless in A Scanner Darkly. Loved the use of pop culture and the bourgeoning consumer culture of the period as a backdrop and interstitial motif. The one actor I recognized was that of the narrator, who is unseen.

 

Finally watched Semi-Tough, the poorly received movie based on the novel by the legendary Dan Jenkins. I went in not expecting much and the movie lived up to that.

The Good: the script is funny with some great little gags. A woman translating Beat in sign language; a little boy pretending he is a train while carrying the train of a gown; the talks between the priest and Bert Convy’s guru.

The Bad: there is absolutely no chemistry between the main characters. Reynolds and Kristofferson seems like two people who barely know each other let alone have been best friends for years. The Barbara Jane character is tough to figure out. Reynolds doesn’t seem to know what to do with his part. He waffles between his late 1970s charm and a tiredness that he struggles to pull off.

The Ugly: this may contain some of the worst football scenes ever put to celluloid. The uniforms and stadiums look like high school games. The scenes are just poorly done. They were so bad I thought that may have been the point.