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

[BigBadBruins7708]

Salem's Lot (2024) - 6/10

I really wanted to like this one more, but they just tried to cram way too much material into a movie run time.

I love the novel and the original mini series. At this point Salem's Lot needs to be done as a 1 season series like Chernobyl to properly tell the story and fit all the material in. The original mini series does a very good job of it in its 3 hours run time, but even that had to drop subplots and combine a few characters into one (notably the adultery angle and the amount of time between Danny disappearing and the next attack). The latest attempt unfortunately cuts out pretty any character development moments to where to where they're all just faces on the screen with no identity to connect to. It simply jumps from big moment to big moment from the book and plays out like a book report written by a 6th grader.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - 5/10

Finally got around to taking the boys and some of their friends to see this. Had them watch the original a month or so ago. Overall, it's (obviously) all about the nostalgia and the main reason it even got the 5 rating. As a stand-alone movie, there are a number of different plots that make the movie jumbled and confusing at times. I think Burton had all these ideas over the years, and when it was finally greenlit, he decided to cram all of them into one movie. Plus, not a shocker as it's Tim Burton, but parts were just really weird.

Overall, it's a fun trip down memory lane and they did a good job bringing back characters and linking to the first one. Got a few chuckles too. However, it was a mess as it jumped from one story to another.

 

[kihei]

Conclave (2024) Directed by Edward Berger 4A

Handsomely mounted, well acted, elegantly photographed, oozing gravitas like a supertanker leaking oil, a peek into the inner workings of the Catholic Church when it comes to electing a new Pope, Conclave is a fun ride until near the end when it gives way to the dumbest, most preposterous, totally ludicrous self-inflicted ending that I have seen in many a year. This papal thriller has other problems, too.

Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), Dean of the College of Cardinals, is tasked with organizing the conclave of Church Cardinals that always follows the death of a Pope. Though I would have expected the Dean to be neutral, he actually is wheeling and dealing to ensure that a more progressive candidate (Stanley Tucci) wins the vote rather the racist arch-conservative Italian candidate whose skullcap could very well read Make Catholicism Great Again. Like victims in a murder mystery, various candidates bite the dust not because of poison in their tea but because of scandal. All this culminates in said stupid ending that caused snickers and the odd guffaw of laughter in my theatre. Now to the other problem: Conclave doesn't even disguise the fact that it is about the upcoming US presidential election as much as it is about electing a new Pope. Clearly the good guys are the progressives and the bad guys are the fiendish conservatives who want to turn back the clock and take away all the Church's reforms. To say the least, the movie is ill-served by this stacked-deck, grandstanding political maneuver. Well, you do get an excellent performance from Fiennes, but the flaws of Conclave are too overwhelming to ignore.