What Did You Rent Last Night?

[Ginger]

Monuments Men took all of the obnoxiousness of the Oceans movies, removed the fun, and added in double doses of self importance and manipulative shmaltz. Plus big slice of ham Cate Blanchett doing her fake German accent.

I turned it off in disgust during a montage set to an ironic a cappella version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

[cubanitafresca]

Finally watched Come Away last night. It stars Angelina, David Oyelowo, and three child actors who were all really good in the roles. I just loved this movie, the story is a little sad, but beautiful, and it's gorgeous to look at. It does a great job with the real and fantasy elements of the stories and had a few unexpected twists. Definitely recommend it.

[Ripley]

TTMR and I watched “Smokey and the Bandit” last night. We hadn’t seen it in years, and I had forgotten just how charming and charismatic Burt Reynolds was.

[laurenj]

I tried to watch The Last Letter from Your Lover on Netflix, but I only lasted about 15 minutes.

I know I read the book, but awhile ago, so the plot isn't fresh in my mind and it was a REALLY slow starter. Shailene Woodley appeared to be so enamored of her period costumes and hair that she forgot to act out the part.

And I know I wasn't paying strict attention to the TV, but I honestly started to wonder if it was a silent movie, it took SO long for any dialogue.

I'm going to try again when I'm not multitasking and can actually focus, but I might also do a reread of the book's plot because it might help me get into it.

[zwinter]

We watched The Father last night. I can see why Anthony Hopkins won the Oscar for this. It was excellent! Hopkins's character is suffering from dementia in the film, and they way they played with the sets (furniture moving from scene to scene, etc.) was very disorienting in the way I imagine having dementia would be.

[laurenj]

Hocus Pocus is on Disney+, so I took a trip back to the early 90s. I miss those kinds of cheesy, PG movies. I'm not sure if they don't make them anymore or if I'm just not in the age bracket anymore so I don't look for them.

Not a great movie by any stretch, but the nostalgia of it and the cheese are fun. The "villains" are these dorky suburban kids who probably would have gotten their asses kicked anywhere else and the supposedly expensive sneakers they stole off the main character...hilarious, looked like New Balance shoes you'd see on an 80-year-old mall walker.

Also, it reminded me that Sarah Jessica Parker had a very specific career in the 90s, between SanDeE with 2 ee's in LA Story, the sexy witch here, the young mistress in First Wives Club, I feel like they were mostly the same character.

[batmom]

When my BF found out that I had never seen Risky Business he decided that this was an oversight that needed to be rectified so we watched it last night. To say that I had misconceptions about it would be an understatement. In my mind it was another 80s movie about a kid having a party when his parents are away and hijinx ensue. I was not prepared for what said hijinx were. I was pleasantly surprised.

[laurenj]

Unforgivable , Netflix movie with Sandra Bullock.

Ugh, what a pile of shit this was, unbelievable waste of talented actors (Sandra, Viola Davis, Jon Bernthal). There was actually a good idea in there and it was fairly well-acted, but the writing and directing was pure garbage. The credits rolled and I was like "What the fuck?? That's it??"

Also, I don't know who directed this, but I want to write to them and tell them the dreamy, soft-focused flashback isn't nearly as effective a narrative tool as you think it is and there IS such a thing as too many of them. I swear this movie could have been 40 minutes shorter if there had either been fewer of these Vaseline-lensed montages or if each one had been appreciably shorter. It seemed like every time the plot was advancing and I finally got interested, one of these endless things would pop up and I'd lose interest again.

[Millis]

Dec 27, 2021 17:23:46 GMT -4 laurenj said:

Unforgivable , Netflix movie with Sandra Bullock.

Ugh, what a pile of shit this was, unbelievable waste of talented actors (Sandra, Viola Davis, Jon Bernthal). There was actually a good idea in there and it was fairly well-acted, but the writing and directing was pure garbage. The credits rolled and I was like "What the fuck?? That's it??"

Also, I don't know who directed this, but I want to write to them and tell them the dreamy, soft-focused flashback isn't nearly as effective a narrative tool as you think it is and there IS such a thing as too many of them. I swear this movie could have been 40 minutes shorter if there had either been fewer of these Vaseline-lensed montages or if each one had been appreciably shorter. It seemed like every time the plot was advancing and I finally got interested, one of these endless things would pop up and I'd lose interest again.

If you want to see it done right, it was a mini series called Unforgiven starring Suranne Jones.

[Deleted]

My husband and I rented The Last Duel last night while we waited for the power to go out from the snowstorm. (Thankfully it didn't.)

It's bad. It could have been an okay movie, I like the idea of giving SA the Rashomon treatment to see how men can spin their own behavior to convince themselves they did nothing wrong, even when to the rest of the world it's obvious. But the acting is terrible. Ben Affleck was the absolute worst, he did nothing but chew the scenery in every scene. Matt Damon wasn't much better, he's way better at comedy than he is at drama. Jodie Comer and Adam Driver were fine, not great but much better than Ben and Matt. And as a very casual fan of medieval history all the anachronisms drove me crazy. It's the 1300s Hollywood, the women's hair should be covered!

I'd skip this one. Decent idea but long, boring, and really badly acted.