Quasar Sniffer

Horror movies: getting me to reveal shit about my brain usually reserved for a therapist's office. THANKS MOVIES!

Yeah, It Follows, Babadook, The VVitch, and Get Out are some really landmark works in horror that, as a devotee of the genre, I feel privileged to be around when they have been released in theaters. I've rewatched It Follows and The VVitch several times and they HOLD UP. If I had to pick a favorite out of that grouping, it would probably be The VVitch. The time period, the detail, the tone... it really hit me. It Follows would be a close second... since it sparks some real Catholic Guilt horrors that I still harbor in my subconscious (ok, my conscious as well) when it comes to sex.

Mayhaps these are standard answers for 2017, but for me it was definitely Logan for a long time... until Blade Runner 2049 came out, which I still can't get out of my brain. I haven't been moved by a movie so much in theaters... I don't know, maybe ever. It's one of those all-time movies for me at this point.

None of those (though they WOULD make great adaptations), but we do discuss similarly themed works! Here is the link! https://wrongreel.com/podcast/wr349-comics-books-screaming-adapted-film-television/

If any of you follow me on the Social Media Hellscape, you've probably seen me jock the Wrong Reel podcast. It's about movies! Lots of them! I enjoyed it A BUNCH. Anyway, I am going to be a guest on the upcoming episode in which host James Hancock and I geek out about comics and what we would want to see adapted to the big screen. Check it out if you wish! https://wrongreel.com/ I will be posting a direct link to the podcast in the next day or so when it is released. Thanks bunches!

I really enjoyed The Greatest Showman. I mean, it's not the deepest movie, but for sheer surface-level pap, it made me smile in a rather uncontrollable fashion. I agree that Zac Efron was totally magnetic in this movie. His athleticism and charisma are pretty remarkable so I hope he finds projects that utilize his talents like Greatest Showman does. And what Fister Roboto said about PT Barnum being a racist snake oil salesman scumbag, I totally agree. I had the same thought about wishing the movie had just invented a character inspired by the Barnum myth. I mean, it would be more historically accurate if Brisco County Jr. had been called "Wyatt Earp: A True Story" without making any other changes. Maybe it's just my love for Hugh Jackman, but I think he is a once-in-a-generation performer. His charisma, acting ability, singing voice, and athleticism, even now into his late 40s, are all at extraordinarily high levels. To see that in a single movie star is a dose of hyper-present talent. When coming up with historical equivalents, I am hard pressed to find comparisons. For example, he is definitely not the dancer that Gene Kelly was, but he is a far better actor. What he's able to bring to roles like what we saw in Logan or Prisoners were rather extraordinary. Plus, he screams while shirtless with claws unsheathed pretty well WHILE looking super handsome in a top-hat and tails.

I love this post.

Say WHAT?!?! Anyone who doesn't take absolute delight in the Corman/Price Edgar Allen Poe films... I just can't comprhened. I love all of them! Mayhaps not equally, but if you love movies enough to take film classes, I can't understand not being able to get some joy out of them.

Hell. Yes. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Come to think of Super-Friends, and when picking super-genius villains, this movie would be at least twice as good if Lex teamed up with a certain other distinguished actor portraying an... EGGO-maniacal baddie...

I agree, and that's part of the fundamental flaw in this movie. It presents this very real, very present, and intractable problem of nuclear proliferation and the resulting annihilation via WWIII, but the main antagonist is a cartoon character that Adam West could dispose of with a quick catchphrase and a spray of his patented Dipshit Repellent pulled from his Bat-Belt.

My issue with Lex Luthor's imprisonment isn't how unguarded he is while in prison or how easily he escaped his chain gang: it's that he's in jail at all! He's a white billionaire, how many of those guys actually do hard time for anything? Hell, Donald Trump is basically Stupid Sex Criminal Luthor with a less snazzy wardrobe, and he's the God damn president!

If we keep digressing into Star Wars, maybe we should do the Star Wars Holiday Special next, then to avoid talking about that horrid piece of mynock feces, we digress away from Star Wars into real musicals in that discussion thread. Actually, no. We should not.

Not quite, but if you were to recast Doc as the Delicious Guatemalan that is Oscar Isaac I would... not hate it.

Change Debora to Derrick and cast John Boyega in that role and all of a sudden the central relationship is a biracial gay couple and I WOULD BE INTO IT.

I enjoy this movie a BUNCH, but I agree with a lot of the criticisms, like the lack of chemistry Baby has with Lily James (caused in no small way by the lack of character development for Debora). This is all the more noticeable considering how much Jon Hamm and Eiza Gonzalez absolutely sizzle on screen together and how unpredictable and engrossing the Darling character is to watch. I also think the second half isn't as vibrant as the first. We don't get the catharsis of that opening car chase in the third act. Don't get me wrong, there are some great sequences, but nothing really moves as spectacularly as that sequence does. And that one moment where Jon Bernthal points forward and Baby drives backwards? Fucking priceless.

*late reply* Oh, I hope she does. She was a force of nature in that role and that movie is great. It's a wonderful, creative screenplay meeting a great actress and I felt very fulfilled by the movie, as bleak as much of it was. A lot of the "laugh lines" weren't even funny to me, just sad, as they were those characters trying to cope with and hide from their despair and fear, which humanized them even more than a joke would.

Unfortunately, I think this is because, in Hollywood, once an actress hits 35 (or younger), she is considered "used up," while many male actors can have a second act as a leading men even into their 60s (Liam Neeson, for example). While there is certainly a reverence for actresses that have maid it through the Hollywood grist mill to old age, like Judi Dench, Hellen Mirren, or Meryl Streep, unless you're Julia Roberts, Kate Winslet, or Nicole Kidman, the meaty roles that win male actors Oscars past 40 just aren't there for women. There's, of course, Sad Wife or Concerned Mother, but those don't win anybody Oscars.

I still love Birdman but I am not angry that Redmayne won. His was a remarkable performance. But that's also goes back to what Ryan Sz and The_Triple_Lindy were saying about both the predictability of the awards and the campaigning that goes on to determine both the nominees and the winners. It is largely a sham, but I don't want that to contribute to people, including me, resenting the people who do win. All this studio self-congratulating and millions of dollars studios spend to pat themselves on the back, it just makes a win from, say, Streep or Daniel Day Lewis, less meaningful. I shouldn't be tired of those great artists making art, yet there is a system in place that forces their greatness down are throats and it becomes less meaningful. We all lose. Greta Gerwig and the Big Sick don't get nominated (FUCKING BULLSHIT) and then we resent the winners because of it. Everyone loses.

This is the reason why the predilections of the Oscars really annoys me. Those movies, especially when it comes to the acting, are rightly described as "Oscar bait," which I think is sad because, hell, who has contributed more to the craft of film acting in the last forty years than Hanks, Streep, and Oldman? Put Anthony Hopkins, Pacino, and De Niro in there are you have some of the greatest contributors to the form in history. And on top of that, who has contributed more to the culture of the 20th Century, especially of film, since the 1970s than Spielberg? Yet we see trailers for The Post and Darkest Hour and we KNOW they're the kind of films the Academy drools over, so when the do win the Oscars, it lessens their accomplishments AND makes us bitter that films like Lady Bird and Disaster Artist don't win (those still might, especially Lady Bird). It's like Pixar: for every Pixar Oscar, I am there grumbling and criticizing them for winning YET ANOTHER award while a lesser known animated film falls by the wayside. Do Hanks or Streep or Spielberg NEED another Oscar? No. Do they have a huge head start because the most talented people want to work with them and they get first look at the best scripts? Well, yes. But does that make the films they do make any less great? I hope not. So... I don't know. Awards for artistic accomplishments are inherently unfair? WHAT AN ORIGINAL IDEA, QUASAR! Next you are going to tell us that Box Office receipts do not directly correlate to a film's quality!

The more distance I get from this movie, as I saw it in theaters because of how much I love Fifth Element (and because I'm a dumb sucker), the more it pisses me off. It could have been this imaginative, if manic and jumbled, sci-fi masterpiece, but instead it's just a boring, obscenely expensive mess with uncharismatic leads. Then you get Rihanna and Ethan Hawke in one sequence and they ooze charisma and the exact right amount of enthusiastic insanity, and then you never see those characters again. Why couldn't the movie have been about THEM?

Though I thoroughly enjoy everyone's cameo, my favorite has gotta be Steve Martin as the Insolent Waiter. It plays like classic sketch comedy that is reminiscent of the best of The Muppet Show or maybe even SNL (though it'd be stretched to three times as long and overstay its welcome). It's short, sweet, and hilarious, and Martin's disgusted sarcasm contrasted with Kermit's naive confidence that he is showing Miss Piggy the pinnacle of luxury, and her accompanying acceptance that he is providing it, delights me to no end.

I find myself moved by your attestations of tearing up at the 2011 Muppet Movie with Jason Segel (which I also love. SHOCKING TWIST, right guys?). I guess this goes back to my comment in last week's Musical Mondays Pick thread about my soul being a desiccated husk. I NEVER tear up at movies, or at songs or TV shows, for that matter. This is why I love the Muppets so much, they get an actual emotional reaction from me (though not to tears), and I am heartened to see other people tear up at these magically simplistic pieces of puppetry. That they can get grown adult humans to believe in their agency just as strong, or stronger, then "actual human" characters is pretty fantastic, and a testament to Henson's genius.

But I also love how, because it is so much a breaking of the fourth wall in the beginning, it doesn't have to be their origin story. It's a story that feels right, that feels magical. There are so many references to The Screenplay and such, that the Muppets themselves are acknowledging the outside forces molding their destinies. Fate puts them on this path together. Yet, it is only through their dedication to each other that they succeed. Kermit will always have "Rainbow Connection" in his heart because he and his friends made that connection with each other on this road trip, even if fate set them on that road trip in the first place.