Movies

Hot damn, just watched The Wailing. How is it that Korea is so good at bleak storytelling and winding plots? Super long, but still well paced. Just a smidge lighter than I Saw the Devil which was also pitch-black perfection.
 
Been working thru the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy..they’ve held up well..the long versions are great ..two discs per film so have split over 6 nights
My friends and I used to marathon these once a year before we all got married and started being super lame. We'd watch The Hobbit Cartoon first, though. It's been years since I've seen them because I refuse to watch them one at a time.
 
My friends and I used to marathon these once a year before we all got married and started being super lame. We'd watch The Hobbit Cartoon first, though. It's been years since I've seen them because I refuse to watch them one at a time.

That was my preferred way , but I have to admit, splitting the extended versions into a part a night was really good, and no one fell asleep!
 
Nomadland won the Golden Lion at Venice, definitely seems like a few steps up from Joker winning last year. Frances McDormand may very well be on her way to her third oscar.

I read the book a while back (it's non-fiction, and follows a handful of older nomadic workers living in trailers and RVs) and it was definitely an eye-opening look at the lives of people in an ignored corner of the margins of the economy. I'm excited to get a chance to see this movie.
 
Finally got around to watching the second half of I'm Thinking of Ending Things last night. Overall, I enjoyed it; there were bits that were clever, and others that were too-clever. I actually quite enjoyed the stuff in the high school; the dance sequence and the speech from a Beautiful Mind/Oklahoma! were pretty good.

I do not know what I would have thought of this had I not read the book. As I mentioned, I didn't like the book, and the reveal at the end felt more like a twisty betrayal from the author. I thought that Kaufman did a great job of seeding the 'reveal' throughout the movie, but I wonder how someone going in cold would have taken it all in.

Overall, I liked it as a meditation on memory and The Life Unlived. It made me a bit sad; as a man in his 30s, I'm often finding myself looking back on different missed opportunities or left turns. I'm not a janitor at my old high school without a single human connection in his life, but it was a pretty relatable sadness. And to what end? The basic conclusion of the film is a release through death (perhaps).

I don't know how you'd do it and what you'd take out, but I wonder if a 90-minute version of this movie would've been a tad more palatable.
 
Good piece on Letterboxd...
Nice writeup; I love me some letterboxd. That said, Brat Pitt is why I wish you could mute users on the dang thing; some of their takes make my eyes bleed. As a Portlander I'll say it's no big surprise to learn they write for the Willamette Week.

Also, we need a Letterboxd for books because Goodreads ain't it, chief.
 
Nice writeup; I love me some letterboxd. That said, Brat Pitt is why I wish you could mute users on the dang thing; some of their takes make my eyes bleed. As a Portlander I'll say it's no big surprise to learn they write for the Willamette Week.

Also, we need a Letterboxd for books because Goodreads ain't it, chief.
Agreed, Goodreads sucks.
 
Just watched Sputnik and LOVED it. Not too scary for space horror (though it takes place almost entirely on Earth) and far more interesting if you dig Cold War stuff. Lots of fun implications there. A lot of parallels to HBO's Chernobyl miniseries too with regard to loyalties and power structures.
 
Getting through October with plenty of horror movies; saw Candyman for the first time Friday, which was great (I think I've put it off because a friend described the entire plot in fifth grade and it sounded spooky, though he apparently got the ending wrong). Watched The Fog Saturday; I love Carpenter, but was a little disappointed. There are some great images, but overall it's a slow burn that amounts to not much.

And last night I watched Beware! The Blob. Which is bad. Without doubt. But it has a bunch of comedy stars (Godfrey Cambridge, Del Close, Shelley Berman, Dick Van Patten) and this very odd, shaggy structure. The movie basically plays like a series of Laugh-In sketches (a hippie goes to get a haircut, an overzealous scoutmaster berates his scouts, some drifters argue) all punctuated by the participants getting eaten by the blob. I might recommend it as a so-bad-its-good watch, ideal with friends and some hoppy/herbal refreshment.
 
My wife and I watched The Devil All the Time last night. I went in somewhat blind, other than knowing some of the actors that were in it and a trailer. I see now that it got a lot of hate review-wise, but we both enjoyed it. It is a SLOOOOW burn for sure, but for some reason I was captivated the whole way through. Maybe it's because I haven't watched a ton of movies lately. I don't know, I like how it was structured and the intertwining stories kept me guessing.

As a final thought, I'm not sure WHAT accent Robert Pattinson was doing/going for, but it was hilarious and I liked his performance nonetheless. He's certainly changed my impression on him as an actor after this and The Lighthouse.
 
I recently replaced my skip-prone dvd of The Shining with a blu-ray of what turns out is the non-US cut of the movie; you can read more about that here:


But basically, after poor performance in the US, Kubrick chopped ~30 minutes out of the movie. The US version is the widely accepted version today, but both cuts are director's cuts.

It's first noticeable when Danny has a vision of the Overlook at the bathroom mirror; instead of including the scene with Danny and the therapist, then Wendy explaining Danny, Tony, and Jack to the therapist, the movie cuts from Danny's vision to the family driving up to the hotel. Lots of hotel backstory is chopped out, as is Jack's alcoholism and the lack of booze on the premises. I actually think the cuts benefit the movie; with the therapist scene included, the family is separated for a long stretch in the beginning of the movie, and considering how lonely Wendy seems in that scene smoking a cigarette and trying to convince this stranger that Jack is a great husband/dad, the entire family unit starts the movie so precarious and fractured already (when I first saw the movie, I thought Jack was Danny's stepdad, that's how alien they all seem from one another). I've always felt mixed about Nicholson's performance because he starts out pretty edgy and only gets more unhinged from there, and I think it actually benefits the character of Jack that not too much time is spent trying to cast him as a loving father and husband; arguably, in this cut he feels more like a family man, sweet but prickly at times.

Stephen King's problem with the movie is it removed a lot of subtlety in Jack, and I understand that: the book is more focused on Jack's internal struggle, and considering King's struggles with addiction, it makes sense that the story of a dry drunk trying to maintain a grip while swayed by supernatural forces as well as his own paranoia/anger would be so personal. I think the non-US cut of The Shining strips away the lip service to that aspect of the story, while making it arguably more effective; when Jack walks into the ballroom, orders a drink, and tells the ghost about the accident that caused him to put away the bottle years ago, the character shading is more striking and less methodical.

Overall, I'd say the US cut is more methodical, while the one I watched last night was more elemental. It's an interesting cut. Especially considering our focus on longer=better, it's interesting to see a director arguably improve a movie in shortening it.
 
Hey what are some lesser known, Halloween-adjacent animated films? Obviously there’s Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride.

My personal favorites are Coraline and Frankenweenie. But I’m wondering if there are others also worth checking out.
 
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