GrahamS.

I haven’t watched it yet, just wanted to call attention to it!

I rented Tenet last week wanting to like it and ended up disappointed. It’s just... dull (at least to me). The dialogue is so full of exposition that it’s almost impossible to follow, the character development seems inconsequential (despite the effort of the actors who try to inject personality into the dialogue), the action sequences are cool but surprisingly sparse for a 2 1/2 hour thriller. It feels like Inception redux in terms of spectacle except with any attempt of characterization stripped away (I love Inception, BTW, but know that some people felt that it was too exposition driven. Tenet is a good compare-and contrast in that tespect). I am a Christopher Nolan fan overall, but this is my least favorite Nolan film. I’m glad I didn’t see it in the theater because I would have been risking my life to be bored. Does anyone agree/disagree? I’m curious to hear what other people think since this movie was so heavily hyped.

Agreed, I live in Seattle and Amazon sucks for a variety of reasons. Discord is fun, but I decided to pop back over here because I miss the message boards. Thanks for the recommendations!

I remember thinking that this movie sucked when I was 10. Enough said.

I’ll also argue that Inception-to me, at least—had a a melancholy, character driven center that was a successful thematic link to Memento. I know some people felt Inception was too schematically written, but I felt the performances really filled in what was needed emotionally. Tenet didn’t feel like it was character-driven at all and as a result just felt really empty. As a result, Nolan could have blown up ten 747s and I would not have cared. Bottom-line, I feel like Nolan’s recent films (barring Dunkirk) have done a 180 from his older work. He used to have a clear eye for where his characters were but not be great at shooting action/spectacle. Now he’s great at shooting action:/spectacle but has lost sight of his characters.

I accidentally liked my own post so I gave myself a hedgehog.

Ok, I think that’s the Discord that I saw because he sent it out via text or something, and is what I was basing my reaction upon.

Off-topic:RE: moving to Discord—how exactly is that going to work? I’ve looked at it and was pretty overwhelmed, If I’m being honest. No offense meant to the people who’ve worked on it, but it seems like huge numbers of people commenting in a variety of ways within several specific-yet-generalized categories (chat under HDTGM, for example, seems like it will be difficult to follow if you want to talk about specific movies/episodes because there’s so much going on). Maybe it’s because I’m 46, but I’m a little bummed that it feels so..complicated. and I’m concerned that the close-knit feel of the forum will get lost in the internet vacuum. That concern may be totally unfounded, but I’m basing it off my initial reaction to Discord. But I’m not against change, so I guess I’ll see.

I’ve gotta bump this bonkers piece of shit because—spoiler alert—it’s the only film I know of that turns its ordinary heroine into a superhuman ass-kicker and then—in the climax—a USB drive. I will bump this movie until there’s a solid reason given not to do it. It is one of the most insane mainstream movies—that thinks it’s profound!—that I have seen.

I can’t believe they haven’t done Lucy yet. That may perversely be one of my favorites of his because it’s so completely batshit. It’s gotta be near the top 10 on the the list of films that think they’re profound but are actually spouting gibberish. In fact, I may have to bump that one of it’s on here. I want them to do a bigger-scale WTF movie on the show.

I know people love to hate on Tarantino’s brand of auteurism, but I could never really get into Besson’s. Most of his films really feel like a mix of self-aware hipness, pretentiousness (if that’s a word), and bonkers, empty plotting. There are a few I find passably entertaining (The Fifth Element is a film solely created as a stoner spectacle, in my opinion, and I did genuinely like the District B13 films, but I don’t think he directed those), but by and large his movies feel like they’ve been made by an “edgy” poser. They look cool and that’s it. Give me some old-school Walter Hill movies or—if you’re going with arty pulp— some Jean-Pierre Melville films, please.

You followed it better than I did. Honestly, I started fast-forwarding it to the action sequences after 45 minutes just to get through it, so I didn’t grab the plot’s nuances. what’s your least favorite Nolan? My previous one was Interstellar. Since the hook of his movies are often based around their rewatchability and close study, these two are the ones I found I had no desire to rewatch.

I had trouble finding this to watch it and now reading your reaction, I’m glad I had those troubles. I MAY still watch it if I can find it for free, but I won’t pay for it.

Sorry I missed it! Going back to work after winter break + all the crazy-ass events last week made me totally space out on it. Hope it was fun and hope to catch it next time!

I’m playing it now as well. Bugs haven’t been too bad so far. Just got to the Keanu section. I’m enjoying it!

I dunno, I agree, they should have set some rules and set some stakes, but ANY movie where the ultimate baddy comes down to an intangible thing like wishes is going to have a shitload of problems.

As long as the stuff you’re looking up is interesting, I’m in. If it’s just busywork to fill time (which I thought the paperwork in Control was—they really could have made the reports more interesting than they were), not so much.

He doesn’t seem to hate anyone. I don’t think he even wants to get rid of Wonder Woman. For a villain, he just seems to want to snort up wishes like lines of coke and damn the consequences. And somehow the wishes are killing him??? i liked the first movie but I thought WW84 was a huge mess. And I do agree with Sycasey, I also wondered what she was up to for the past half century or so. It certainly seems like WWII, Korea and Vietnam made 0% impact compared to the heartbreak that was Steve. It should definitely be a HDTGM movie, but I doubt they’ll do it.

It’s an intriguing idea, it just doesn’t really go anyplace. I watched it this summer and can’t remember how it ended, although I might have watched it in an altered state, so I won’t blame the film entirely for that. Also, I watched it really close to watching Relic, which I did like but was another slow-moving art house horror film (but it is more traditionally satisfying than She Dies Tomorrow). I think watching two slow-moving art house movies in a row was a mistake and probably not entirely fair to She Dies Tomorrow.

Awesome! I’m more of a friend of Peter’s and an acquaintance of Jessica’s, but Peter works at the coffee shop that’s close to my apartment andI saw them both frequently (pre-COVID, of course). They’ve worked really hard on their new album and have worked really hard trying to be successful. I hope their new album helps them—it’s really good.

RE: The Sinking City: glad to hear it! So many bad/underwhelming Lovecraft games. I’ve been curious about that one for awhile. Got a PS4 for Christmas (skipped the PS5 hype because fuck scammers) and I’ll add that to the list of the many game I’ve yet to play.

I just watched WW84 with my Mom last night. I agree, everyone did the best they could (and I like the first one) but somewhere around the Middle East section, both of us just started laughing at the movie. It felt like they were throwing every idea that they could against the wall with nothing (like WWI) to ground it in a sense of reality. That fucking President—is that supposed to be Ronald Reagan???—threw me for a loop. I also thought the fact that Kristen Wiig didn’t burst into song ala Jennifer Hudson was a wasted opportunity. The main thing that bothered me was...where was Pedro Pascal’s kids’ mom? He’s a terrible father, but she’s just non-existent or is perpetually out with her boyfriend? This kid is wandering streets packed With rioters with no parental supervision. Someone call child protective services already.

Honestly, in terms of top ten for movies, not a lot stuck with me this year. Perhaps because everything I saw was on the small screen and all of the “great” stuff got so much critical hype that it felt a little flat (or I’ve missed it). Here are the ones I did like: Extra Ordinary, Color Out of Space, The Invisible Man, Shirley, Small Axe Mangrove and Lovers Rock (haven’t seen the rest of that series yet), Palm Springs, An American Pickle, American Utopia, The Assistant (although it’s so documentary-like and dry—it reminded me of when I interned at a small production company in college—that it’s hard to recommend to people who aren’t intensely fascinated by the subject matter). I know there are more, but I can’t think of them right now. Film that was most praised that I was underwhelmed by: She Dies Tomorrow (I think I’m getting burnt out on the art-house horror trend . Didn’t hate it but it just didn’t leave much of an impression). Film that was critically trashed that I was legitimately surprised how much I enjoyed: Underwater. It’s no masterpiece, but for an Alien knockoff, I liked it a helluva lot more thanPrometheus or Alien:Covenant. Top TV: Big Mouth, Good Lord Bird, The Queen’s Gambit, The Flight Attendant, Schitt’s Creek, Lovecraft Country (it was hit-or-miss, but overall I liked it), Search Party. There are more, but that’s what I remember. TV that was less than the sum of its parts: Devs. And the third season of Westworld sucked. I spent a lot of 2020 playing more videogames than I can count. There was a lot of music I liked this year, but RTJ4 and Fetch the Bolt Cutters were by far what I listened to the most. Finally, I will sincerely promote the latest album from Deep Sea Diver called Impossible Weight. They’re an up-and-coming Seattle band and —full disclosure—friends of mine. They were recently profiled on Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast and their album has a 79 on Metacritic.

So is this a connected series of crappy Netflix rom-coms?

It’s easily one of the most purely enjoyable escapist, Hitchcockian entertainments from this year. Kaley Cuoco was fucking great (and the rest of the cast was too, but it was her show)!