R.CAllen

You know who the 144th President of the United States is going to be? I don't see how that's possible but I believe you! If you say so! But, then again, perhaps you are wrong : as the Holy Texts proclaim, "we se many philosphers say or believe many things no one is sure about anything".

I'm sorry but those two paragraphs are more coherent and far more genuine than the entire collected works of, like, Jacques Lacan. So much of it is so true! There are some many doubts we face in our daily lives! If you are a student you often do have a doubt when you chose your major your career! We dont know who will be the net President of the United States! I don't know about you guys but I certainly do feel like I live in dubdt and uncertainty all the time! Even the claim about the sun 'revlolves' around the sun isn't entirely inaccurate! I am on Team This Guy/Girl!

I saw the episode in which Elisabeth Shue returns to the show.

I thought it was ... kinda terrible? Over an hour long, bloated, no jokes (I mean, there's the occasional moment of black comedy interspersed throughout the dullness but it's not nearly enough), the plot was like some sort of badly executed Valentine's Day special; I think this might be why I never really got into the show through the first season - it's not good! It's less good than the sincere CW garbage shows and I don't even watch those! There's a kind of arch smugness to the dialogue that I just bounce off of hard, I don't find it funny, I don't find it clever, I just wonder to myself why Meg Ryan's kid is pseudo-playfully insulting his ex's candy choices when it's clear she's in a bad place emotionally (I mean, sure, she seemed to cheer up when they were in the car singing along to Billy Joel but Mother's Milk shut that right down and they've just witnessed a possibly fatal accident - she's texted him for help! Constructive criticism only, Meg Ryan's kid!) and spend my time trying to fathom why the writers decided to include four (4) scenes that revolve around sweets in a single episode. I don't buy that it's a motif! I think they just like candy! I think they just talked about candy all day and stuck it in multiple places in the script and kept it in there because there are four hundred and seventy nine television shows and now each and every television show can be as long as it wants and about anything it wants to be! It is fun to see, say, a couple of distinct Canada Post mailboxes followed by a USA Today newsbox, that's still a level on which I can enjoy the show —  I guess I can look forward to checking in if/when there's a Season 3 flashback episode starring Elisabeth Shue because, hah, they killed her off again!

I remember really liking this movie when I saw it but as I recall my reaction to it was mostly on this level rather than coming out of any particular measure of quality had by the movie itself.

This guy named Chris Sherman was all like 'Sign up for my website! It's free! You'll have fun!' and now over two decades later I am not free and I am not fun no sir

I don't know, Iceheart, sounds like you've got a chance to help out this future cryptocurrency millionaire and his super for real wife what kind of monster would say no to an opportunity like

I constantly get calls on my cell phone from a Chinese woman saying things like "zhè gè shí hòu nǐ zài lù shàng yù dào de suǒ yǒu rén dōu shì xiàng nǐ suǒ mìng de gū hún yě guǐ" - lady, what kind of game are you playing with

I can't think of any obvious scams anyone has ever tried to pull on me. It's possible I'm just a very gullible person and automatically assume other people are telling me the truth and act accordingly??? When a computer tells me there are Hot Girls In My Area Aching To Meet Me, well, I gather that's what the situation is. I believe computer! Why would computer lie? When a guy comes up to me in the library and hands me a hastily photocopied note on which is written the words 'I Am Deaf And In Need Of Financial Support. Anything You Give Could Help Me' I believe that man is deaf! I believe he needs my help!

Or maybe it's just that my memory is shot. I guess if anyone tries to scam me in the future, assuming there is one, I'll try and make note of it in this thread.

Thanks! The proportion of the film's writing that I enjoyed so much I wanted to kiss it remains unchanged.

I gotta confess that when I saw this movie's title in a topic on this here board some years ago I just assumed Cantankerous Jedi was programming a film festival or something like that. But it's a real movie! Real things happening! Was it worth pushing pause on the crime-stopping adventures of Michael Emerson and Jim Caviezel for ninety minutes? Yeah!

Best bits:

* The lighting! Who lit this movie - Wario Bava?

* I guess on some level we're w/the characters because just like them a savvy audience is torn between going w/the flow and being scared AND trying to suss out what's coming next. So it works! The conceit of the movie is solid!

* The scene on the ride (Night Bumps?) where it breaks down, Tony Todd made his little safety announcement, it got me! I thought we were sufficiently early in the film that the whole thing was going to swerve and be all about the kitty-eared girl from then on! I thought the main girl was a goner! I'm a rube, I'm a mark! It was a well executed piece of business!

* The guy getting the knife to the eye had the desired effect. I had my hands up over my face, had to pause the movie right after, the whole nine yards. The horror was horrifying! The classics - they work!

* yes, I liked recognizing the masks at the v. end.

* Oh, wait! 1/6th of the writing was amazing! Just the best writing ever! Mwah mwah mwah!

Bad bits:

* Okay so twenty-five minutes into the movie they're all playing carnie games and the dude running the ringtoss says, 'This is painful, bro.' because the main love interest can't win and the main girl is all like, 'Sometimes you just gotta accept that this is not for you.' Indeed! This is about where I'd shut off the movie under normal circumstances! Nothing interesting is happening! I only know three of the six main characters' names ('Grade School', Gavin, Brooke)! I dislike the nursery rhyme motif! There's just some pretty lights, that's all! That's what the movie has got going for it at this point - lights!

* I do not buy that that particular kind of guy has seen David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986), sorry! Obliquely referencing better films, good! Ripping off better films wholesale, good! Openly and unambiguously referencing better films in a hamfisted manner just makes me wonder why I'm not rewatching them instead, bad! (Okay, maaaaybe if that guy was the guy who bought the VIP tickets in the first place.)

* wrong doll at the very end! It's not the doll that the guy made a big deal of choosing out for the main girl! It's just a regular old tiger doll one of the other guys won! Gotta have it be the main doll!

1 hour ago, Tank said:

I did not rip off a Goosebumps book.

Good to know! If you'd have let me known sooner I could've put off watching the flick 'til tomorrow! As it is, I couldn't wait to count up all the resemblances to 1994's One Day At Horrorland and sat down to watch the film tout suite!

No embedded material from YouTube (or what I gather from context is supposed to be YouTube stuff; and when I try to post a YouTube video I don't see it either) shows up. I just see blank space. I assume the problem is w/my browser but I figured I'd mention it here just in case it was happening to anyone else.

Can't wait to watch this movie whose premise seems at first glance (I've just seen the poster and read the one-sentence ImdB logline) like it was ripped off from one of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books.

This cover of Bruce Cockburn's 'Lovers In A Dangerous Time' that BNL did in March was v. moving!

I teared up a little watching the footage of early voting in Fairfax, Virginia. All those people literally risking their health (and lives!) to try and do what's right. Knowing it might not matter yet being so concerned it won't matter that they'll show up at the earliest possible moment to try and do what they can against it, I don't know. I'm kind of a huge cynic (and there's maybe a thin edge of cynicism in the actions of these people, too) but it really moved me! Probably something broken in my brain (or in my politics) that this mattered to me but the nation's longest lasting protest movement didn't bring a tear to my eye, yeah, I know. שנה טובה ומתוקה, everyone!

Okay, cool!

I don't understand what you mean. If I had to guess, well, I assume you (and maybe Zathras?) are talking about The Big Lebowski (1998) but I don't really see the connection outside of maybe the setting, broadest possible genre definition, and maybe maybe maybe tone.

19 hours ago, Zathras said:

Sorry guys, this has to go into the movie about a stereotypical absentee parent, who is a habitual fuck up buffoon with a heart of gold,  that wins the day by pure luck, who has a pissed off teen child who knows all story column.   I won't say it is horrible, just a film trying to ape the Coen Brothers way too hard with predictable tropes. 

Can you tell me the title of the Coen Bros. movie this is trying to imitate? If it's more than one, then, which ones?

ImdB tells me Elisabeth Shue is back for one (1) episode this season (how????!) so I guess I gotta watch that episode.

I was about to post a GIF of Linda Carter shaking her head 'No.' but I thought better of it at the last second. I don't want to go down that road! Can't just be dropping easy GIFs every which way! And, besides, who am I --- Mr. In-Charge-Of-How-People-Act-In-A-Pandemic? Have fun! Stay safe!

3 hours ago, Cerina said:

But I switched to the default theme for other reasons, so maybe you want to as well. 

Thanks! I'll give that a try!

The re-design makes me nauseous. (No, wait, that's an innate feature of me as a person!)

What I mean to say is this : the re-design induces feelings of nausea in me. I'm not exaggerating for comic effect or anything like that. When I scroll down the page it seems like I'm standing over a vast empty starfield and the posts themselves are superimposed over it, floating above a plunging abyss. It feels like I'm on top of a tall building and reading words written on large signs held up over their own heads by people walking on the faraway ground. (I get a similar-but-different type of vertiginous sensation with stuff like the old Windows 95 3D Maze or first-person shooter games — it's close to that with Nightly.net now.)

Anyone else feeling this? Is it just me?

I kinda feel like by 2016 Crowe was well on his way towards his decline and Gosling was into his ascendance. I see the movie as a story about a widowed down on his luck PI with a daughter to raise, it's the origin story of him meeting his violent but generally even-tempered partner, it's kind of a movie about a TV show that never happened — one in which the Ryan Gosling guy is sort of the main guy, the Russell Crowe guy is that guy's older partner / mentor figure. Yes, I know what the title of this movie is! I still think that's the deal. (I understand this probably makes no difference and the decision about whose name goes first in the credits is primarily a business one and was made long before the movie existed in its final form.)

Excited to head on down to the ol' movie theatre and catch a double feature of Tenet (2020) and New Mutants (2018, 2019, 2020). Just gotta make a quick stop first at the Broad Street pump to fill up on well water. Will make sure to lick the handle a few times before I leave, just to be safe!

Saw it again yesterday. Not to be grim but the smog alert and pollution business and stuff ("don't say and stuff!") feels especially timely with what's going down nowadays. Stay stafe, uh, entire Pacific Northwest!!!!

It's a 'Dudes Rock' movie, yeah. Surprised they haven't re-teamed since; not necessarily a sequel or anything but another period piece detective flick would be welcome. This isn't my favourite Shane Black, nope, not by a long shot, but seeing as it doesn't feel like he's ever gonna recapture the old magic I'd sure rather watch him do this kind of self-pastiche than Iron Man 3 or whatever. Also, inadequately distributed voiceover is the sort of thing that usually irks me but both times w/this movie it was smooth sailing.

Best bits:

* Russell Crowe doing the biggest wettest sloppiest spit take.

* Ryan Gosling doing the thing from Abbott & Costello meet the Universal Horror Monsters.

* The dream sequence followed by Ryan Gosling's high-pitched scream as the car crashes.

* Gosling throwing his own gun out the window.

Bad bits:

* Russell Crowe gets top billing? Whah? I mean, we meet Healy first, sure, but that character does feel like way more of a second half to Ryan Gosling's character than the other way 'round.

* The Tarantino trunk shot when Gosling's daughter tries to sneak along w/them to the party. No salt in my sugar bowl, Shane! Get that outta here!

* The 'You will never be happy :)' thing is cookie cutter dumb dumb screenwriting. I hated it the first go around and I hated it watching it again this time.

Feel like the following is the obvious joke about a film that's been delayed for three years based on a concept that's nearly thirty eight years old in a film franchise that is itself two decades out from the start but nevertheless —

Old Mutants! They should've called the movie Old Mutants!

(Also : they apparently managed to leap the hurdle of correctly spelling 'Sienkiewicz' in the closing credits but somehow goofed on 'McLeod'.)

Oh, one of the rules last time around was 'No porn.' That should probably go w/o saying (although it's a genre that IS readily available on lots and lots and lots of major streamers!) but I figured it might be a good idea to mention it before we got started.

Yeah, under these circumstances, weekly probably makes the most sense! I wasn't actually trying to suggest a change to your format — just remembering the closest we got to something like this in the before 'fore.