Per the other/shows thread, we are trying Britbox and watching Silent Witness. Tonight we noticed some movies and watched “Evil Under The Sun” (Agatha Christie mystery, 1982 movie with Maggie Smith and other stars). We liked it. I think it is also available on other streaming services.
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I loved Evil Under the Sun!
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While waiting for the just so-so James Bond movie to start, I saw a preview for “The 355”. I’m all for women being able to do just about anything but I don’t really want to see women beating up people. I would prefer more of a battle of wits approach. Anyone see the preview?
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Oh, yes, I remember this move, that was a long long time ago when I was a teenager. There were quite a bit Agatha movies imported to my home country around the 1980s. I guess I need to watch it again.
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Just watched Black Widow–son and his gf came by for dinner and had a nice family evening watching together. I liked it a lot–total fan of the whole MCU. Good acting and some great writing. Made me cry a few times. Also made me laugh.
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Colorado_mom - love Maggie Smith, would watch her in almost anything!
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“No Sudden Move” is our kind of movie. Benicio del Toro is such an underrated actor and Don Cheadle is great in this new film. 92% Rotten Tomatoes agrees with us. Well done!
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Late to the game - watched The Green Book - so good! The leads are such great actors.
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Saw Dune over the weekend, and it was very good. Strong cast, good character development, good writing, and absolutely amazing cinematography. The only downside is where they chose to end the movie (they divided the book into a couple movies). Recommended.
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DH and I saw Dune this weekend too and also thought it was very good. We ended up watching it at home on HBO Max, but we both wished we had seen it on a big screen. The cinematography was indeed amazing! I look forward to the second installment, hopefully not too far in the future.
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We are going to see Dune next Sunday at my relative’s condo media room with a big screen and only extended family members, all fully vaxed. Should be great fun!
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I saw Leave No Trace today. According to the Wikipedia page at List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes - Wikipedia , Leave No Trace is the most reviewed movie with a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes by a good margin – 241 fresh and 0 rotten. I tend to like movies with an outdoor hiking/camping emphasis, partially because I am introverted and enjoy more isolated hiking/camping to decharge, so this seemed like a movie I’d enjoy.
I agree that it is a technically a good movie – good acting; great at show and not tell; unique characters and story, character(s) that you can discover their personalities, care what happens to them (Tom, more so than Will), debate whether they are right or wrong; emphasis on incompatibility, rather than simple good vs bad; avoids the usual cliches; etc.
Nevertheless, I felt largely indifferent to the film – I didn’t especially enjoy it, nor did I especially dislike it. The film had many moments that I could connect with. An example is when Will struggled during the automated test with true or false questions, and could not define complex feelings and responses into a simple true or false. The scene was done well and I could associate with it, but I did not find it especially interesting. This was a common theme. The pacing seemed slow, with many less interesting parts, and a generally depressing aftertaste, in spite of nearly every one in the film appearing to be genuinely good persons – even side characters (this is probably intentional… if everyone in film seemingly wants to help, makes audience also want to find a solution for main characters). I though the ending was especially unsatisfying with a lot of unanswered questions, particularly in regards to Tom’s future. I won’t elaborate to avoid spoilers.
I much preferred the director’s earlier film, Winter’s Bone. A lot of the same comments about technical quality could be said about Winter’s Bone and it also has a bleak/depressing feel, but I felt it was a more captivating story with better pacing that kept me more interested in the film.
Data10 - I did enjoy Leave No Trace (recommended here) but it didn’t really ‘stay with me’ months later. I much more enjoyed Captain Fantastic (also recommended here). It had somewhat similar themes (family living outside the norm in the wilderness) - but there was so much heart, humor, and incredible acting in Captain Fantastic! I remember many scenes vividly.
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We really liked “Leave No Trace”, quite thought provoking. Having said that, it’s good to know ahead of time that it is rather slow paced. Most nights we prefer livelier choices.
Will try to watch “Captain Fantastic”.
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Loved Captain Fantastic. Got to see a bit more of Viggo Mortensen than expected.
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Our family loves that movie. We’ve seen it at least 3-4 times.
Agree with everyone above on Captain Fantastic–great movie. A friend of mine (who’s related to the filmmakers) highly recommends King Richard–biographical account of Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena. It’s being released to theaters this month and will also be on HBO Max.
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Thanks to this helpful thread, we watched “Captain Fantastic” last night and liked it. There is lots of theme overlap with “Leave No Trace”, which I liked a little more (probably because I saw it first and already pondered over the forest-living parenting scenario).
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We just returned from watching Dune and Red Notice at the theater. It was so uncrowded that I really, really hope the theater doesn’t close. There were 4 other people in Dune with us and 1 other in Red Notice. A handful of senior citizens were there, but I expect they were there to see Journey With Jesus as it’s only showing tonight at 7pm.
When we left Red Notice around 9pm the theater (12 screens) was empty of people. We didn’t even see any workers, nor was the sound on for any other screen among our side of 6 screens. There were maybe half a dozen cars in the parking lot, but I’ve no idea where the people were. H wondered out loud if maybe we should have turned off the lights. We literally saw no one in the lobby or food areas.
We had planned on streaming Red Notice here at home since it’s a Netflix film, but changed our mind after Dune to try to do what we could to keep the theater in business. We even bought hot dogs there - first time ever - and they were actually extremely good (Berks, all beef - our favorite brand and type). Added to the large popcorn and drink we shared (typical for us with those two), hopefully it helped do something for their bottom line tonight.
As for the movies themselves…
Dune was well done, but really not my genre. I don’t care for movies where killing is really the theme. I like a lot of sci-fi (Star Trek, Star Wars, except for the one where Anakin turns bad, The Martian, etc), but Dune definitely isn’t among my loves. Still, it was well done so for those who like that sort of thing, enjoy. A preview for Moonfall looked interesting for next year.
Red Notice was a LOT of fun for us - mindless entertainment with twists and turns that weren’t always predictable, laughs, and a fun plot. We’re really glad we opted to see it at the theater. It looked like they ended it with a series in mind. I don’t know if it will be a movie series or a Netflix TV series. I’d rather see more movies.
Both movies had oodles of Mythbuster moments, but Red Notice made them fun.
In hindsight I’d have been content skipping Dune. I’ll be sending out recommendations to friends/lads to see Red Notice. They enjoy fun movies too. We’re among the 89% of Google users who give it a thumbs up (89% as of this typing anyway). I’m not thumbs upping or downing Dune (85% thumbs up as of this typing). It was well done, but not my style.
We had no plans to see Eternals as Super Hero movies really aren’t my style, but tomorrow I’ll send H, S, and wife to go see it as they love them. It’s nagging in my mind to go see it with them merely to give the theater some more business. Time will tell if my dislike of Super Hero movies wins out or the desire to have a nice local theater nudges me. There’s nothing else playing that’s even remotely interesting to me.
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Really excited about House of Gucci. Lady Gaga and fancy costumes. 
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