What movies are you watching?

[epilogue]

Mud

Another one I wanted to see but managed not to.

[Anders]

Saw four movies today, all for the first time, and I thought Ruby Sparks was the best of the four. The concept (A novelist struggling with writer's block finds romance in a most unusual way: by creating a female character he thinks will love him, then willing her into existence) has limitations in how great it could be, but the actors did a phenomenal job.

Mud was not a poor movie, but still a bit of a letdown. I had high expectations, but it was just ok. On the level of Killing Them Softly. Worth seeing, but nothing spectacular.

I do love Clint Eastwood, and really enjoyed seeing him and Amy Adams in Trouble With The Curve, in some ways I enjoyed it more than any of the other movies for that reason alone. But as mentioned, the story just felt too basic and straightforward, and any overall rating of the movie, would have to be reflected by that.

[The Argonaut]

Four times in one day is my record, too. But that was a long time ago, I was much younger

[Malloy]

Killing Them Softly

Argo and I love this one, but nobody else does.

Tommy's on the team with us. And I remember that Malloy likes Scoot thanks to this movie, though I'm not sure if he loves the movie as a whole as we do

malloy has complicated feelings about this movie. so many great performances though. part of me loves it.

[Malloy]

she hasnt been doing well box office wise....Birds Of Prey and The Suicide Squad were disappointing and both Babylon and Amsterdam featured her prominently in the posters and trailers and were embarrassing bombs.

If that Barbie movie flops, its going to be hard for her i guess. She has that new Wes Anderson movie and the Ocean Eleven remake next too.

she needs to work with better directors.

[Jorge]

Tár was good. An amazing performance by Cate Blanchett. Very clinical, understated filmmaking by Todd Fields. I liked the way they depicted her fall from grace through little signifiers, like the size of the meeting rooms she's in and the state of the cars she's driven around in. At the same time, a lot of the dialogue during the first half of the movie is too winkingly precious, at times almost unbearable. And the depiction of cancel culture feels clumsy and out of touch (always seems to be the case). I also felt that at no point is art and music made to seem important or meaningful. Never quite understood where the movie stands on Lydia Tár and her choices, but I guess that's part of the point. LOVED the ending, actually laughed out loud. Really want a full-length version of Cate Blanchett singing "Apartment for Sale."

[lennytheweedwhacker]

Baby Driver. Elgort’s face is quite punchable.

[Anders]

Where The Sidewalk Ends and Pickup On South Street

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[lennytheweedwhacker]

The Lost City. Predictable and formulaic, but I actually had mostly good, dumb fun with this. C-Tate is perfect for these type roles.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[epilogue]

The Lost City. Predictable and formulaic, but I actually had mostly good, dumb fun with this. C-Tate is perfect for these type roles.

[epilogue]

Tár was good. An amazing performance by Cate Blanchett. Very clinical, understated filmmaking by Todd Fields. I liked the way they depicted her fall from grace through little signifiers, like the size of the meeting rooms she's in and the state of the cars she's driven around in. At the same time, a lot of the dialogue during the first half of the movie is too winkingly precious, at times almost unbearable. And the depiction of cancel culture feels clumsy and out of touch (always seems to be the case). I also felt that at no point is art and music made to seem important or meaningful. Never quite understood where the movie stands on Lydia Tár and her choices, but I guess that's part of the point. LOVED the ending, actually laughed out loud. Really want a full-length version of Cate Blanchett singing "Apartment for Sale."

looking forward to this

I skipped or early on because of a trusted friend's review. And now I keep hearing how amazing it is and I hate my friend.

[Jorge]

It's good.

[VinylGuy]

Tár was good. An amazing performance by Cate Blanchett. Very clinical, understated filmmaking by Todd Fields. I liked the way they depicted her fall from grace through little signifiers, like the size of the meeting rooms she's in and the state of the cars she's driven around in. At the same time, a lot of the dialogue during the first half of the movie is too winkingly precious, at times almost unbearable. And the depiction of cancel culture feels clumsy and out of touch (always seems to be the case). I also felt that at no point is art and music made to seem important or meaningful. Never quite understood where the movie stands on Lydia Tár and her choices, but I guess that's part of the point. LOVED the ending, actually laughed out loud. Really want a full-length version of Cate Blanchett singing "Apartment for Sale."

I loved it. What is that you felt was clumsy about the depiction of cancel culture? I Kinda loved that the movie is not obvious on were stands with Tar. It’s just showing us what’s happening to her.

The best joke was her brother calling her Linda though.

[Jorge]

It just felt old in several little ways. Like that wacky edited clip from her lecture. In real life they would've released the clip without any crazy edits and she still would have gotten torn apart because of it.

[VinylGuy]

Yeah the edit was weird.

Also she taking the girl to that trip and thinking her wife wouldn’t notice

[dad]

Boogie Nights.

[The Argonaut]

I think I feel very similarly about Tár. It has some things going for it, but some odd details distract. A question about the ending:

Spoiler: show

Is she happy, even conducting where she was? She has this revelation near the end of the movie when she watches the tapes she used to watch when she was a kid. Her art had moved so far from joy and beauty to just careerism and technical bologna and snobbishness and personal privilege and everything else. She spends most of the movie composing an uninspired song based on a doorbell. Now that she's back in touch with what she loves about her art, is she happy to be doing what she's doing?

She is, right? She's taking it as seriously as she ever did, preparing notes, rehearsing with the musicians. She is physically repulsed when the opportunity to take advantage of a woman is presented to her, in the massage parlor.

So, yeah, I think the ending is funny. But we're not just laughing at Tár, there. It's also celebrating her. She knows something about herself and her art and what's really important and is just going for it whatever and wherever she has to.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.