Last movie you watched......

Lots of nostalgia. It was good.

 

There are good reasons that for many years Dune was considered unfilmable. Same reasons why the previous attempts have all been flawed or outright failed.

If you've read the book you understand it all perfectly. If not then much of it is very opaque and slow. All the action side of the plot is backloaded, and the general consensus seems to be that it was broken at the right place. It still staggers me that the moron bean counters at the studio did not let him make both halves at the same time. Penny wise, pound foolish.

 

I liked No Time to Die - not as great as Casino Royale or Skyfall, but I give the producers credit for closing the chapter well. Beautiful scenery, great practical stunts, odd to think how much the world changed since it was made - the COVID-ness of the storyline was kind of jarring. Throw in being made in the middle of the Me Too movement.
One plot quibble - with the length of the movie, I figured they'd have time to explain what happened to Mr. White (Madelyn's father) for those of us not steeped in Bond lore.

Spoiler: What happened to him

(He was arrested by Bond in Casino Royale and escaped in Quantum of Solace returned to, and was poisoned by Blofield, killing himself with Bond's gun)

I also had a problem with the math - Malek is just four years older than the actress playing Madelyn - and yet, I got the impression his character should have been a good 15 years older than her character in the prologue. Weird.

That said, it's going to be really interesting how they "reboot" the series again - now that they made clear 007 is just a number, but Bond is Bond.


Anyone else watch previews these days and have a hard time figuring out who any of the actors are? I realize I'm now out of the movie-going demo, but where are the movie stars these days? Do they only make small indie films?

 

Judas and the Black Messiah. Highly recommend. Great acting all around and many excellent scenes.

 

Continuing my habit of oldies-but-goodies, I watched "Yours, Mine and Ours" the other day.

It's a 1968 film in which Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball have the starring roles (the movie was produced by Desilu Studios). Both were good, and entertaining as you might expect, but there were appearances by a slew of other recognizable lesser lights, too: Van Johnson, Tom Bosley, Tim Matheson, Mitch Vogel, and Tracy Nelson in what was probably her first movie role, as one of the youngest children in a blended family of 19 kids before blended families became an everyday thing.

The movie was intended as light, gentle comedy, and it delivers for easy entertainment. Lucille Ball was so good and comfortable (and comforting) in light dramatic stuff. She had more depth and dramatic chops than what was usually shown on "I Love Lucy," a full-blown comedy that emphasized her physical comedic talents. And that can be seen in a couple of her movies, including this one.

 

I just watched No Time to Die and liked it.
I was sad that it was going to be Craig's last until I saw him in it. He played it well but physically looked past his sell by date just like Connery in Diamonds are Forever and Moore in A View to a Kill.

 

Training Day is on VH1 so every other word is muted but it's still a great movie.

 

I’m hoping my next movie is Licorice Pizza on Christmas Day, which is the date for its wide release.

I’ll have a good chunk of time to myself on Christmas Day, and it’s good to have a plan to fill the time. The dark clouds can roll in very quickly without a game plan.

 

I've noticed they're allowing people to freely say "shit" on cable now. I've seen a bunch of movies and shows where that word is flying all over the place, but f-bombs are muted.

This also reminds me of a peeve I had the other day. We were putting up the Christmas tree and "Die Hard With a Vengeance" was just coming on SyFy, so it stayed there as good background noise. There's a scene early in the movie where John McClane has to walk through Harlem in his underwear while wearing a sandwich board that says "I hate (n-word)." For this cable version, they digitally altered the sign so it says "I hate everybody."
Well, I hate that change. It makes it so that the entire scene makes no sense.
The villain's plan was to get McClane killed by an angry mob, but why would they be angry over that sign? More than likely they'd think he was just some lunatic and, if anything, laugh at him or steer clear. The racial tension between McClane and Zeus that runs throughout the film also springs from that moment, so it undermines another big part of the movie.
I get why they altered it, but if they're going to the effort to do it why not just change it to "I hate n*****s"?

 

We are watching Enough Said with Gandolfini and JLD. What a loss

 

Okay so got my Licorice Pizza tickets.

I’ve heard nothing but good things, PTA is a known commodity etc and I swear it’s playing at one tiny screen in my city of 1 million. I’m so out of touch with the scene.

 

There’s an IFC channel on my cable that runs films as is, T&A and cursing and violence and whatnot. Shitload of commercials, though.