Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate it | {Insert Appropriate Seasonal Greeting Here}

[Chili]

Wolfs (2024) Directed by Jon Watts 5A

Sidenote: What's with this spelling of the title? Makes as much sense as Toronto Maple Leafs.

Conn Smythe explained the origin in his memoirs 'If you can't beat 'em in the alley'. When he got control of the team in 1927, he changed the nickname from the St. Patricks (which he said had been to attract the local Irish population to attend games). Smythe had been an artilleryman and later a flyer in WWI (was shot down and became a prisoner of war too). The Maple Leaf had been on badges and insignia he wore during the war. The Canadian athletes had worn the Maple Leaf crest on their chests during the 1924 Olympics, so he believed it meant something across Canada. When the new arena was built in 1931 it was of course called Maple Leaf Gardens.

There may be further details in Ripley's Beleaf It or Not.

 

[NyQuil]

Conn Smythe explained the origin in his memoirs 'If you can't beat 'em in the alley'. When he got control of the team in 1927, he changed the nickname from the St. Patricks (which he said had been to attract the local Irish population to attend games). Smythe had been an artilleryman and later a flyer in WWI (was shot down and became a prisoner of war too). The Maple Leaf had been on badges and insignia he wore during the war. The Canadian athletes had worn the Maple Leaf crest on their chests during the 1924 Olympics, so he believed it meant something across Canada. When the new arena was built in 1931 it was of course called Maple Leaf Gardens.

There may be further details in Ripley's Beleaf It or Not.

He's referring to the fact that it's the Leafs and not the Leaves.

 

[Chili]

He's referring to the fact that it's the Leafs and not the Leaves.

Yes and that is the explanation for the spelling of the team's nickname.

 

[NyQuil]

Yes and that is the explanation for the spelling.

The grammatical explanation is that it's a proper noun.

 

[Chili]

The grammatical explanation is that it's a proper noun.

If he was naming the team today and there was a grammatical backlash, Conn Smythe may have just called them the Toronto Maple Leaf and left it at that. Or something else but the Maple Leaf was an inspiration for him.

 

[NyQuil]

If he was naming the team today and there was a grammatical backlash, Conn Smythe may have just called them the Toronto Maple Leaf and left it at that. Or something else but the Maple Leaf was an inspiration for him.

Well, it makes sense in terms of names with nouns in them.

Like the Blackfoot Mountains are called the Blackfoots and not the Blackfeet.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Wolfs (2024) Directed by Jon Watts 5A

A "fixer" is called into to clean up a messy crime that has taken place at an exclusive hotel. Only minutes after he enters the room, another "fixer" appears, claiming he has been summoned to take care of the situation. They don't get along, and many complications follow. Wolfs is a vehicle of pure star power reuniting George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Unfortunately, the movie itself is kind of disappointing, never rising above workmanlike at best.

While there is some fun watching the old pros snipe at one another, despite its convolution, there isn't much of a story, nor is there any sense of urgency. Though no one else seems to have shared this thought, I found that the young cub in this movie (Austin Abrams who plays an unsuspecting accomplice) stole the show, injecting some much needed warmth and good nature into the proceedings.

It has been sixteen years since Clooney and Pitt have made a movie together, which is surprising given their comic chemistry (though I think Pitt is a lot better at it by this stage than Clooney). One would think that given their immense clout they could have come up with a more promising and wittier script than this one.

Sidenote: What's with this spelling of the title? Makes as much sense as Toronto Maple Leafs.

It's a testament to that kid that the best scene in a movie with Clooney and Pitt is this kid's long comedic monologue/ramble about how he got into the situation he's in.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Watched a few flicks recently that I hadn't gotten around to reviewing yet.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Directed by Stanley Kubrick 10/10
What can I say about this one that hasn't been said? A cornerstone of cinema and frequently listed as one of the greatest and most influential films of all time. I'm not sure how or why I took so long to watch this movie, but I finally got around to it and I am glad that I did.

I'm not going to spend much time recapping this one, as I'm sure most people will know the general gist of the film. Team goes to space on a mysterious mission with the assistance of artificial intelligence named HAL 9000. Things don't exactly goes as planned.

Hard to find anything I didn't like about this movie. The music and visuals were absolutely mesmerizing, the story was gripping, the cinematography was immaculate especially when you consider the time that the film was made. The acting was great, and just the entire overall 'vibe' of the film is just awesome. The movie didn't feel dated one bit, despite being over half a century old.

The interactions between the characters feel authentic and Kubrick's attention to detail and obsession with wide-angles, long-tracking shots, and using music to create an eerie and captivating atmosphere is on full display here. The psychedelic nature of many portions of the film, especially the end, makes for quite a mind-journey of the movie. Easily one of the most immersive film experiences that I've ever had.

One I shall be re-visiting many times, I'm sure. I would love to see this one in a theatre.

Sophie's Choice (1982) - Directed by Alan Paluka - 6/10
Very classic film about Polish immigrant Sophie (Meryl Streep) who struggles to live with and heal from her past trauma along with her her emotional and at times abusive boyfriend Nathan (Kevin Cline), and their 3rd wheel Stingo (Peter McNicol).
Having lived through hell in Auschwitz Sophie's heart is heavy with loss and heartbreak. The story shifts between the present day and her time as a Nazi prisoner, as well as recounting stories to Stingo of her family and upbringing in Europe. Stingo, being a young and naive author, tries his best to heal those around him, especially Sophie. As the film goes on and the viewer learns more and more of Sophie's history it becomes apparent how deeply traumatized that she is. The film culminates with Sophie having to make her choice, of course, which I won't spoil for anyone who hasn't seen it yet like I hadn't.

I thought it was an interesting and intense film and a decent portrayal of mental illness in observing Nathan in his various outbursts throughout the film.

Meryl Streep absolutely crushes this role. If I didn't know who she was I would have thought she was actually Polish, her accent is just perfect. I really wasn't too crazy about this film overall though. I had heard before through references about the choice, so it didn't hit me as hard as I think it would have if I had watched it going in completely blind. Still pretty impactful though.

Green Room (2016) - Directed by Jeremy Saulnier - 4/10
My wife has recently become absolutely obsessed with the studio A24 so we've got quite the list set up of films from there. The most recent we've watched is Green Room.

Green Room is a thriller/horror film which follows the story of a vagabond punk rock band "Ain't Rights" as they travel around the Pacific Northwest skimping and stealing what they can to get by, trying their best to gain some notoriety and make some cash. They get set up a gig in the middle of no where in a neo-Nazi bar. When they begin to play their anti-nazi music they clearly piss them off. When the band returns to the green room to get one of their cell phones they witness a dead body and are subsequently held hostage by the people who run the bar.

Most of the film revolves around them trying to escape from their captors by any means necessary while the owner of the bar Darcy (Patrick Stewart) tries to keep the events under wraps as much as possible.

The cast was alright, but not exactly a home run in terms of acting performances. Patrick Stewart's appearance in this film is so odd and seemingly out of place and is one of the saving graces of this film. I'm not a gore enthusiast or anything, but I really liked that they didn't shy away from showing some of the more gory scenes. Anton Yelchin was pretty good, and this was sadly one of his last films. Solid music, especially if you like punk rock. Not a particularly inspired film though, IMO.

Short little popcorn film, only 95 minutes but doesn't exactly have the depth and complexity of many A24 films.

 

[kihei]

Megalopolis (2024) Directed Francis Ford Coppola 5C

The scaffolding provided for Megalopolis is elaborate: ancient Rome, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar with reference to other Shakespearean plays and staging; the hope of a Phoenix rising from ashes, Fellini's Roman imagination; Citizen Kane in terms of sheer technical virtuosity and the idea of the great man; and related to the Italian elements, the whole notion of the power of public spectacle. The story is simple on paper, basically a battle between a visionary artist who wants people and by extension society to realize its potential and a hack politician who claims to have the interests of the public in mind but actually just is too comfortable with the status quo to change in any meaningful, helpful way. The larger theme here is how can a visionary artist fulfill his potential in a society that is constantly in danger of unravelling, especially when so many thorny personal issues keep getting in the way of the artist as well. The playing out of all this is messy, weird, wildly imaginative, and, frequently, hit-and-miss or massively indulgent. If you treat this as a normal movie, you may not have much fun. I sat through the thing not worrying too much about plot, but rather trying to figure out just what Coppola was trying to express about the pitfalls and potential calamities of Caesar's life and times and how they reflected the director's own sense of the impediments he faces as an artist.

So Megalopolis is an idea movie, maybe a personal narrative movie, too. However, as a movie movie, I think it ultimately disappoints. Why? First and foremost, It fails at something very basic, characterization. In his hodgepodge collection of wildly imaginative ideas and images, Coppola forgets to include believable characters to lighten the load of all this intellectual abstraction and cinematic razzmatazz. All of these characters feel like they exist only on the printed page, with no sense of depth or back story or flesh and blood. Flitting around like a butterfly as it often does, the editing doesn't always help them find a rhythm either. Coppola does a whole lot of direction in this movie, but not much of it seems aimed at his male actors, everyone of whom, save maybe for Giancarlo Esposito, seems to be floundering, making up his character out of thin air, showy gestures often replacing any believable hint of authenticity. Megalopolis ends being a flawed but audacious technical marvel--wide as a river, but half an inch deep.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

8/10

 

[kihei]

Pictures of Ghosts (2024) Directed by Kleber Mendoca Filho 7B

I have to admit that Pictures of Ghosts is about as niche as you can get, but I really liked it. It is a hybrid documentary/memoir in the style of Agnes Varda's graceful doc/memoirs such as The Gleaners and I; The Beaches of Agnes; and Faces, Places. In those works, Varda takes a subject (gleaners, conceptual art, herself) and examines it from a very personal perspective, so that the film is as much about her impressions as it is about the subject at hand. In a nice, homey, perceptive way, though.

Basically, Pictures of Ghosts is a journey through the past in which the director reflects on his home town of Recife, Brazil, a tough, sprawling city on the northeastern coast of the country. In a gently nostalgic way, Filho is focusing on change, the kind of change that obliterates the past. It is a very personal reminiscence that starts with his old neighbourhood where he grew up as a child and where he filmed some of his movies (Neighboring Sounds; Aquarius). Then he gradually shifts to the downtown area of Recife that has become so out of fashion, run down and dangerous that many of the young people of the city have never visited it.

That's a jumping off point for something about which he is particularly interested: the old movie theatres that used to populate the downtown area but aren't there anymore, that are in most cases completely forgotten. Ironically some of the movie palaces have even been transformed into evangelical churches. All this is shown with a kind of relaxed, non-judgmental melancholy. He's not ranting against change, just noting some of its casualties. In the end, maybe he is just pointing out the importance of memory.

Best of '24 so far

1) Flow, Zilbalodis, Latvia
2) All We Imagine As Light, Kapadia, India
3) Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Jude, Romania
4) Green Border, Holland, Poland
5) Pictures of Ghosts, Filho, Brazil
6) Hit Man, Linklater, US
7) The Substance, Fargeat, US
8) The Breaking Ice, Chen, China
9) Dune, part 2, Villeneuve, US
10) The Wild Robot, Sanders, US

 

[kihei]

Joker: Folie a Deux (2024) Directed by Todd Phillips 3B

I don't know who is going to want to sit through this sad, depressing movie. Half of Joker: Folie a Deux is about Arthur's plight in a mental ward of a high security prison and the other half is a tepid courtroom drama. Through both halves, Arthur has found a love interest, another psycho played by Lady Gaga who madly falls in love with Joker. The fact that this movie is a musical could have played well and provided some relief from the drudgery; the approach is unconventional, certainly not frilly or even that showy. The music is actually fairly well integrated into the narrative, such as it is. The problem is while Lady Gaga brings her trademark intensity to the mostly low-key numbers, Phoenix shouldn't be allowed to sing even in a shower. His voice is awful which just adds to the collection of woes already in evidence. The real problem is how much of a downer this movie is. Who wants a movie about Joker restricted to a prison and courtroom setting? It's just kind of a dull slog occasionally, but not often enough, enlivened by the two leads. It is just more of Phoenix doing his Joker schtick, only this time in a setting where there is nothing new added to what we already know. Joker remains bleak and full of despair, a tortured soul if there ever was one--but I kind of figured that out in the first one. Why director Todd Phillips decided he wanted to make this movie is mystifying.