I left Hidden Figures feeling good. Like Sly, would be great to have school kids see it. Such overall good acting.
I saw both Fences and Arrival this weekend. Two thumbs up, especially for the very thought-provoking Arrival.
I saw “Manchester by the Sea” yesterday. Excellent movie. True to life dialogue, characters and plot. Thought provoking and completely free of “Hollywood” type movie moments.
I also saw Fences this weekend. To me this was the finest film I have seen this year. It is an excellent adaptation of the play in terms of the expanded setting. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis are amazing and for my money, the finest actors we have today. The whole ensemble is outstanding, beautifully filmed, well directed by Denzel. While he will certainly win many acting awards, he should also be nominated as Director.
@bookmama22, seeing “Fences” inspired me to read all the plays in the Pittsburgh Cycle (which I hadn’t even known about before reading reviews of the movie after I saw it). I also thought the movie was great.
I just came from Fences and loved it. I thought Denzel Washington and Viola Davis gave Oscar worthy performances. This was one of the best movies I’ve seen this holiday season. Excellent.
D saw fences and liked it but said she was the youngest one in the theater, lol and that the first half was wicked slow lol.
I’d like to see it. Also, S/O wants to go see Arrival this week, so glad to hear the good review! @Barbalot
We saw Rogue One and La La Land over the holidays and really enjoyed both of them! I really didn’t expect to like La La Land as much as I did, but loved seeing L.A. on screen and thought Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling were very charming. My husband was the one who most wanted to see it, and he was pleasantly surprised by all the jazz in the movie, since he’s such a jazz lover. Today, we didn’t go out, but watched a movie from early 2016 called Midnight Special on HBO. I knew hardly anything about it, but DS wanted to see it before he goes back to school. Has anyone else seen it? I think it must not have been in theaters very long and/or didn’t do well at the box office. It was so, so good! I highly recommend it.
@doschicos: “It reminded me in many ways of two other great movies - In the Bedroom and Ordinary People. Family tragedies, suboptimal communication, raw emotions, families torn apart.”
That is precisely what the trailers do for me, remind me of those two films. I don’t think I can handle that right now.
@Waiting2exhale It is sad and I did cry (not that me crying at movies is that rare of an event) but it is super good. I don’t mind sad movies. This one is thought provoking and made me appreciative for the good fortune and relationships I do have. I like movies that make me think and make me cry.
I mostly like happy, uplifting movies. I don’t like movies that bake me sad or cry.
Saw LIon yesterday, we all really enjoyed it. I loved that it was a true story. There was about 20 minutes in the middle that I thought was a little slow, but other than that great uplifting movie.
@Mom2jl - I saw “Midnight Special” in the movies and I LOVED it! (I also re-watched it on HBO twice!) It wasn’t in the theaters very long but my whole family really enjoyed it.
The writer/director of “Midnight Special,” Jeff Nichols, also wrote and directed a movie called “Take Shelter” that was also very very good (although a little slow). It also stars Michael Shannon from “Midnight Special.”
I just now realized that Nichols wrote and directed “Loving,” too.
I forgot to mention we did see Rogue One which we all liked.
Did anyone like the Xmen series? I only saw one or two back in the day and I’m considering watching them in chronological order (not release order). But I heard some are terrible so not sure it’s worth my time.
@Fishnlines29 some of the Xmen movies are ok, some are tedious. I found the ones with Wolverine as the main character to be boring. I like the ones with Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier, those were good.
We finally broke our string of depressing movies by seeing Lion and The Eagle Huntress over the weekend.
Lion was, as everyone else has said, reliably enjoyable and uplifting, although I spent at least half the movie with tears in my eyes. It’s not a classic of the cinema, but it’s definitely worth a couple of your hours. I expect a major Weinstein Company Oscar push for the kid who plays the protagonist at 4-5 as Best Supporting Actor. He was absolutely amazing (as were all of the many child actors in the film).
I was surprised The Eagle Huntress was still around, and most people who want to see it at this point will have to wait for On Demand or Netflix or whatever. It’s a very slick documentary that could easily have been a scripted film (and probably was, to some extent – I suspect a bunch of scenes were re-enacted for the camera), about a super-charismatic, 13 year-old Mongolian girl who defies convention and learns the traditional male art of catching, training and hunting with golden eagles. Along the way, she actually wins a national eagle-skills tournament, then goes out and proves herself (and her eagle) hunting foxes in the Altai Mountains in the middle of winter. And paints her nails sparkly purple, and giggles a lot with her friends. She has the enthusiastic support of her family – including her father and grandfather, both famous eagle hunters – and benefits from the befuddled acquiescence of other eagle hunters who don’t believe it’s appropriate for women to get involved in the activity but don’t have right-wing talk radio to whip them up into organized opposition. She (and the film) also gets a huge boost from the eagle she captures and trains. The eagle is pretty charismatic herself, and turns out to be really good at doing the things that score points in Mongolian eagle hunting competitions.
H and I watched Midnight Special a couple of months ago and thought it was really good.
Regarding August Wilson and Fences and the PIttsburgh Play cycle… DH and I took ourselves to Washington DC for an anniversary weekend at the beginning of December and although we did not have advance reservations we were able to get into the new African-American History Museum which is outstanding. There is an entire section in the exhibit about August Wilson and the individual plays. Not to steal this thread but the museum is really great even through we were unable to get into the history part. Even though we arrived around 10:15, there was a 45 minute wait inside the museum to get downstairs for that exhibit. We just went to the upper levels as we had stopped at the National Archives the day before and saw an excellent exhibit with primary documents for the Civil Rights Movement.
Totally agree. Movies that make me a better person through self-reflection are always welcome in my book, and sometimes that means really sad movies.
It’s a gray, raw, misty day here, so I think I’'m going to do a matinee of Manchester By The Sea. Looking forward to it.
Hubbie wants to see Manchester and Lala Land…so, I’ll be anxious to give my thoughts.