Movies

I was able to catch a screening of the new Gorillaz documentary Reject False Icons tonight and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm admittedly biased due to being a huge Damon Albarn fan, but it was just a fun experience all around. It chronicles the recording and touring of Humanz and The Now Now and I feel like the biggest theme was the power of collaborating with other artists. Humanz infamously received criticism for its massive guest list and a lack of Damon but when you see the joy of it coming together in the studio and the power of it coming alive on stage, I feel like a lot of the album's detractors might soften up to a bit when they see the passion that was poured into it by all of these artists coming together. The tributes to Ibrahim Ferrer and Bobby Womack were very emotional and there's a moment between Damon and Jamie Hewlett (the artist behind Gorillaz) on stage near the end of the film that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Also Little Simz is a queen.
 
ayayrawn said:
Y'all getting into some Christmas movies? What are your yearly must-watches?
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White Christmas
Rocko's Modern Christmas
Muppet Christmas Carol
Scrooged
Home Alone
The Holiday
Nightmare Before Christmas
Holiday Inn***
All the stop motion and Claymation Christmas movies. All of them.




***(I love this movie, it has some absolute banger performances from Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. But If you're sensitive to some pretty over the top examples of how ignorant people were of cultural insensitivities maybe skip this one, because yikes)
 
ayayrawn said:
Y'all getting into some Christmas movies? What are your yearly must-watches?
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I get through A Christmas Story at least 3 or 4 times each year. This year I relate the most to Randy.

Muppet Christmas Carol is my favorite iteration of A Christmas Carol, and Elf is such a great new classic. National Lampoon's is one I was late to but love tons; i still need to sit through it this year.

Another category I find interesting is movies one associates with Christmas, either because the movie has Christmas trappings (like Brazil, City of Lost Children, or Die Hard), or because one’s first viewing of it was around Christmas.

For example, I watch some or all of the UK Office each December because I have very fond memories of my sister coming home from college and showing me the series, and then receiving the full series DVD as a Christmas gift the following year.

Also, in reaction to the annual droves of people announcing “Die Hard is a Christmas movie, fight me” and thinking that makes them interesting (I agree that the designation of Christmas Movie is subjective; I just get annoyed with how immediately-combative and self-satisfied the opinion is), I programmed a bot which picks a random movie and asserts that it’s a Christmas movie:







There are some real gems, though there are a lot of movies from the 20s and 30s I’ve never heard of which are now Christmas movies.
 
I don't know if I have a solid top whatever films of the year yet. Still need to see a few, namely The Irishman, Marriage Story (both I just need to set aside time for), and the others aren't playing here any time soon. Buuuuttttt...here's what I remember enjoying the most this year:

The Lighthouse
Midsommar
Parasite
Toy Story 4
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Inventor
Booksmart
 
I don’t really have specific Christmas movies to watch every year (I’m usually trying to catch up on the year’s releases I’ve missed), but the year we got married, my wife and I started the tradition of going to see a musical every Christmas Eve. This year... CATS!

I do try to watch the Christmas episodes from the first three seasons of Community every year though.
 
gaporter said:
I was able to catch a screening of the new Gorillaz documentary Reject False Icons tonight and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm admittedly biased due to being a huge Damon Albarn fan, but it was just a fun experience all around. It chronicles the recording and touring of Humanz and The Now Now and I feel like the biggest theme was the power of collaborating with other artists. Humanz infamously received criticism for its massive guest list and a lack of Damon but when you see the joy of it coming together in the studio and the power of it coming alive on stage, I feel like a lot of the album's detractors might soften up to a bit when they see the passion that was poured into it by all of these artists coming together. The tributes to Ibrahim Ferrer and Bobby Womack were very emotional and there's a moment between Damon and Jamie Hewlett (the artist behind Gorillaz) on stage near the end of the film that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Also Little Simz is a queen.
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Meant to go see it, but became a little difficult work wise. Assuming they'll be some kind of digital/Blu Ray release soon.
 
A Lost Highway said:
Meant to go see it, but became a little difficult work wise. Assuming they'll be some kind of digital/Blu Ray release soon.
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I think it's been confirmed there will be. There's also rumors that the home media version may be a different cut? Idk. I'll get it when it comes out either way because... well...
20191218_164847.jpg
 
As far as Christmas movies go, I have some that become a yearly watch if I have time like The Shop Around The Corner, The Holiday, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. There's a few "bummer" Christmas movies that I will alo throw on, like Mon Oncle Antoine and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

I also dearly love The Muppet Christmas Carol, but my family's absolute must-watch every Christmas Eve is The Muppet Family Christmas. It was a TV special from 1987, and we had a VHS recording of it that we wore out as kids. They did make a limited DVD of it, which is next to impossible to find and is out of print due to some of the music in it. I managed to find a digital copy of it, and we watch it every year. It is excellent and (like a lot of old Muppets stuff) still quite funny, and it also has Sesame Street and Fraggles in it for good measure!

And oh look at that, it's on YouTube!

 
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