Movies/Shows you're watching.

[Stefan]

I started watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, it's delightfully hilarious!

[Enjoyed]

Molly's Game.

Wonderfully classic Sorkin. Dialogue heavy of course but a really well told story throughout.
Honestly, it feels like I'll never have anything bad to say about his writing. Even the more obvious / heavy handed beats in the film fell into place around everything else so well that I just embraced them and rode along.

I'm glad he's taken up the role of directing too - though I guess if I was being critical there isn't much in the 'direction' that screams of him finding his own voice. It was a Sorkin movie as much as The Social Network or Steve Jobs were, but without the personal touches that Fincher and Boyle weaved into the work (respectively).

Still, top notch performances all round. I'll definitely be going back to watch it again.

[whirlygirl]

I'm watching this show on Hulu called Baskets and the premise is absolutely ludicrous but funny as hell. It's about a guy (who is a clown) from Bakersfield, California who comes from a ridiculously dysfunctional family. The Chemical Brothers get name dropped constantly! That in and of itself is funny to me. Probably because it's so random. Anyway, apologies if this has been mentioned here before between my sporadic posting, but it's worth checking out for a laugh or two (or three).

[whirlygirl]

I started watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, it's delightfully hilarious!

I love that show! It's so well done. Everything from the costumes to set design to the story telling. I've read somewhere that it is loosely based on Joan Rivers but I don't know if that's true or not. Either way, the show is funny, stylish, sweet. Looking forward to next season.

[satur8]

I finally watched Arrival and Get Out. Both were fucking brilliant.

[Bosco]

agreed. I enjoyed both movies a great deal. Get Out should be a slam dunk for best Original Screenplay.



Anyone see 'I, Tonya'? I thought it was super entertaining.

[Enjoyed]

I also saw Get Out recently.

I enjoyed it a lot, but I was expecting a little more after hearing everyone's positive reviews.
It was an interesting horror story (not sure how much 'comedy' there really was) but it was pretty predictable. I definitely had a good time watching it but I couldn't help feeling like there was a little more that could have come from it.

Spoiler

The exposition felt a little unnecessary, with the weird commercial-video that was seemingly shown to each person who was taken? That was way too clearly for the audience and I didn't think it was needed. I think it could have been more interesting to not really know why people were being taken.

It felt very much like a Black Mirror episode but slightly less well executed. IMHO.

Also, my suspension of disbelief was completely shattered when Rod used Bing to search for

Spoiler

Andre

.

[MIKL]

Anyone see 'I, Tonya'? I thought it was super entertaining.

Yeah. I thought it was well cast. Its almost like you wanted to know more about her after the movie or wanted it to keep going. That type of movie gets made often in Australia as well and was interesting to see a real life american tale about that type of thing. (dysfunctional family life, underdog story). Margot has been taking the real life Tonya to the award shows as her date which is awesome. Just being herself and not really giving a shit who she is talking to etc.

[Born In Planet Dust]

Annihilation was really fucking good. 

[Wolkenkrabber]

https://twitter.com/KathyBurke/status/970239771443449857
^ Didn't embed because of emojis in Kathy Burke's twiter handle.

20yrs ago I brought young, unknown film maker, Joe Wright with me to a private show of Nil by Mouth. Gary Oldman asked me if he was any good. I said, give it a few years & he'll direct you in a film that will win you an Oscar. Fingers crossed!

Congrats to Joe Wright, director of Hanna and Life of Galileo. Darkest Hour won Best Actor last night at the Oscars (Gary Oldman). So he can stick that on the film posters.
I haven't seen the film myself because I have mixed feelings about Churchill which I won't bore y'all with.

[Enjoyed]

He thanked Joe in his speech last night too. He was very complimentary about him.
"It only took 20 years for us to work together, but it was well worth the wait."

Awkward ceremony overall though. Messages about equality and inclusion felt very overshadowed by the incredibly strange delivery of some of the speeches and the, honestly unnecessary, over statements about the number of female nominees.

[Enjoyed]

An interesting discussion about Annihilation (including spoilers - beware)

I have to say, I enjoyed the movie but I was left a little disappointed by how derivative it felt at times, despite being a very new and unique concept for a sci-fi. Visually it was very impressive and the score sounded SUPER in the theatre. I think I wanted a little more exploration of the 'changes' that were happening. Rather than the more traditional - let's get to the source of the problem.

Also, on the topic of feminism in movies. I think it's worth mentioning that it didn't register to me at all that this movie had an all female lead cast, even with the mention of it directly in the film. Isn't this exactly what a feminist movie should be? A movie that is just a movie, and happens to have female leads - without the need to draw the audience's attention to it - thus negating the idea of it being something 'equal'.

[Enjoyed]

This week on 'Peter Goes To The Movies So You Don't Have To'...

Tomb Raider

Let's start off by saying that this movie, 100%, has Alicia Vikander in it. So there's that.

Unfortunately, that's it. The story doesn't really make any sense. It develops in stupid ways that don't make sense. You don't really care for any of the characters because they don't make sense. And despite maybe 2 or 3 shots in the entire movie that echo scenes from the original games, it may as well be called 'Random Heroin: The Movie' because the Tomb Raider title doesn't make sense.

[Wolkenkrabber]

Tomb Raider

Was Hannah John-Kamen as lively in this as she was in the Sometimes I Feel So Deserted video?

[Conn6orsuper117]

2 words: GET OUT
Watched it and is hella worth it. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say theres no jumpscares so it focuses more on the psychological horror than upfront horror.

Spoiler

dunno if this counts as spoilers but the comedy relief foil is super hilarious

[Wolkenkrabber]

An interesting discussion about Annihilation (including spoilers - beware)

Yep worth a watch once you've seen the film, thanks.

I think I wanted a little more exploration of the 'changes' that were happening. Rather than the more traditional - let's get to the source of the problem.

I wanted the film to keep moving, so I might not agree with that. I also think it left us to figure out some things by ourselves which are discussed in your YT clip above and also in this spoilery but worthwhile little "explanation":

it didn't register to me at all that this movie had an all female lead cast, even with the mention of it directly in the film.

It did with me on two occasions. Firstly when we see the five of them walking into the shimmer with backpacks, I thought: Oh, like lady-Ghostbusters but less humourous (I liked Ghostbusters 2016 incidentally, in a 3 stars sort of way). And the second time was when

Spoiler

the ladies watched the footage of the guy being cut open by Kane to reveal his worm-like intenstines. I thought: oh the other group was all male. Is this like the Olympics where they have an all male team and an all female team? Wouldn't it make more sense for both teams to be mixed? (Incidentally why would that guy agree to have his stomach opened up like that? What was he going to do afterwards? Get stitched up and carry on?

BTW there were a couple of "Chemical" connections in this film. Benedict Wong who does the interviewing in his science-suit was in the live visuals for I'll See You There. And Sonoya Mizuno from the Wide Open video and Ex Machina had a small role as a med student. In the closing credits she is also credited for

Spoiler

"humanoid creature". If that means Portman's double in the lighthouse then it's weird that someone else is credited for that on IMDB.

I think the second YT video above really hones in on

Spoiler

all the cancer references and how the whole shimmer thing is like a  form of cancer, and how it can mutate and annihilate it's host.

It's funny to see the comments about Cinema v Netflix. I would have liked to see have seen it in the cinema for the music and indeed the visuals but I couldn't. Meanwhile some Americans moaned on twitter that the rest of the word could watch it on Netflix (a couple of weeks after the US release) and they couldn't. But not many people bothered going to see it in the US from what I hear. So um...maybe they should have gone to the movies! On the plus side, I have been able to watch the film twice in quick succession.

In my second viewing I had a close look at

Spoiler

Lena v her double in the lighthouse. Lena is identified as having a streak of blood down her forehead, whilst her double (once it has a face) does not. It was the bloodied Lena who emerged from the Lighthouse (a similar visual clue was used to differentiate the Tom Cruises in Oblivion). So I think it was her that returned, but her time in the shimmer had changed her, so she wasn't quite the same.

It was pretty clear however that Kane was the double, and I think Lena was prepared to accept him because he didn't know that she cheated on him, so it was a chance for a new beginning. The "cancer" of cheating had been removed. Princess Amidala and Po Dameron could start afresh.

I also think the ending had parallels with Ex Machina. The annihilating force had quietly slipped into normal society, and we can only imagine what that will do.

I still have a couple of questions though. What happened to to Tessa Thompson's character, Jodie? She just disappeared by choice. She killed herself?
And did Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) allow herself to be consumed/burned up because she had cancer? Is that why she didn't end up with her own double?

Interesting to see Jennifer Jason Leigh in two sci fi films in quick succession. She's also in Duncan "son of Bowie" Jones' Mute which was actually comissioned as a Netflix original [EDIT: Actually she isn't, I must be going mad! But I'm leaving this in because I want to mention Mute]. The critics slaughtered it but I thought it had some merit, and may be worth a discussion of it's own. I liked her in David Cronenberg's eXistenz back in 1999. Perhaps she likes a challenging Sci Fi film.

Back to Annihilation. As for the music, yes it was good, and particularly noticable

Spoiler

once Portman ran out of people to talk to in the final third of the film.

The use of Moderat's The Mark (from album: II) was great. I think they looped a section of it and turned up the volume or re-EQ'd it, as it seemed to pack more punch than on the album. Geoff Barrow credits the track for setting him and Ben on their way with the music that followed (as per the tweet I posted on the Moderat thread -  which he has since deleted but then tweeted afresh).

SPOILER VISUALS (there are other uploads of The Mark without spoilers on YT if you want)

This music just brings back the whole feel of the film immediately for me:

Oh ps: if you like films about

Spoiler

alien viruses/cancers landing on earth

you could do worse than watch The Andromeda Strain (1971 version). It's a bit freaky to think that SARS probably came from space, and some other virus could land with a comet one day and wipe us all out. Maybe.

[Enjoyed]

The cinema / Netflix debate really is an interesting one.

There's nothing like 'the big screen' but paying upwards of £7/$10 for one movie just doesn't feel worth it nowadays, which I think is the argument coming from the folks wanting to see it here on Netflix.
With my MoviePass, the cost of the cinema doesn't become a factor, so of course I'll go see it on a bigger screen with a huge sound system (even if it is always seems cold in American cinemas and you inevitably have to deal with some kind of distraction from an audience member) but if I didn't have the pass, I'd be reserving my cinema trips for very special occasions, or for movies that I truly think will be more of a spectacle on the big screen. I would argue that Annihilation, as beautiful and incredible as it looked/sounded at the cinema, also works on a more personal level in the comfort of one's home.

RedLetterMedia actually talked a little more about the Netflix thing, and how it's unfortunately becoming a little bit of a dumping ground for movies that the big wigs don't think will do well at the cinema.

Back to Annihilation

, the sound in that last third really was incredible. And thank you for sharing those clips. They really do paint a very vivid picture of the film's mood. I really was in awe during that final section. Even with today's (mostly) high level of CGI, there was something there that I've just never seen before, and again, the sound design and the music captured it perfectly.

There were a couple of parts earlier on that I felt fell a little flat - one that stands out particularly was the weird swipey/wooshy sound used when each of the members of the group passed through the shimmer. It literally sounded like a copy and pasted sound each time, which was a little distracting.
But then there was that incredible

Spoiler

bear/death howl monster

which was another awe inducing moment of visual and audio mastery.

I've actually been slowly appreciating the movie more and more since I first saw it. Which, I'm not sure is a good thing? Because it's mostly due to conversations like this, and looking at reviews and explanations of the more hidden meanings. It's a clever film, and maybe I missed, or wasn't looking for deeper things when I watched it, but I wasn't as blown away by it initially as I feel like I am now... if that makes sense.

Still. Highly recommend.

Was Hannah John-Kamen as lively in this as she was in the Sometimes I Feel So Deserted video?

No. She may as well have not been in the movie. Seriously. Did she have a name? I have no idea. She had lines. But they served ZERO purpose in the narrative of the movie.
Even more that just doesn't make sense in a movie that should have been simple enough.


Incidentally, I'll be going to see Pacific Rim: Uprising on Friday. So if you want to know what it's like but you don't want to drop 10 dollar$ on finding out, fear not, tune in at the usual time for another mini review.

[sandelic]

I just watched Annihilation.
I don't think I'm gonna sleep tonight.

[Born In Planet Dust]

Annihilation bear > Revenant bear

[ThePumisher]

three billboards outside ebbing, missouri



most thumbs up so far this year