What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

Grudunza wrote: An Honest Liar is about the Amazing Randi, a legendary magician who became known for debunking faith healers, psychics, and people like Uri Geller. There is a lot of great footage with him on TV shows, basically following Geller around and calling him out for his deception. I took notes with some of Randi's quotes: "People think they believe what they choose to believe. They don't. They believe what they need to believe. They would rather accept what some charismatic character tells them than really think about what the truth might be. They would rather have the romance and the lies... No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived."

I’ve seen that movie and enjoyed it quite a bit. The Amazing Randi is quite a charismatic character. I have always enjoyed watching him debunk the frauds out there, and the calm, witty demeanor with which he carries himself is charming and entirely too rare in popular culture.

There is a moment later in the documentary that I found a bit sad, though. In the scene Randi is quite clearly emotionally upset about the possibility of losing his partner, but touching as that was it wasn’t really what got me. It was his inability to simply step down among us lowly, irrational plebs and say something as simple as, “Because I love him.” Instead, he struggles and eventually says something like, “This is a person who has become precious to me, and I would miss him”—something like that. It reminded me of an interview that I saw once of Ayn Rand, in which she similarly struggled to explain her love for her husband without betraying her ideology. Anyway, that one moment made me really feel for Randi. Such a rational, intelligent guy, but as blinkered as the rest of us.

BLEEDING SKULL!

For all your trashy movie needs, there is no substitute. Their reviews are great, and they're doing yeomen's work to keep the VHS culture alive and appreciated. Just thought I'd share...

Gregarius wrote: It's possible that comedies are too closely tied to the era in which they're released. The pacing and the style of delivery definitely changes over time. However, comedy can also be extremely subjective. I'd like to know what movies you think are funny in order to gauge your reaction to the ones you mentioned.
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Growing up Upper Middle Class Australian, my comedy roots tend to be British (Australian comedy in the 70s was very crude and aimed at the working class), so probably the 80s sitcoms written by Ben Elton (Blackadder, The Young Ones) are the best indicator of my style of comedy, so something that involves clever wordplay and is still a bit zany. Thus I love the Christopher Guest mockumentaries and the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker movies, and have a soft spot for cleverer romantic comedies (L.A. Story, When Harry Met Sally), and probably regard Tom Stoppard as the greatest comedy writer. I have never been much of a fan of the 70s SNL school, which is probably why I never saw Caddyshack or Animal House. Actually Saturday Night Live is probably the epitome of what I don't like, as every time I have tried watching it over the last 20 years I have found it painful as almost every joke that is funny is funny for about a minute but is stretched to 5 minutes making it tedious and unfunny.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: Actually Saturday Night Live is probably the epitome of what I don't like, as every time I have tried watching it over the last 20 years I have found it painful as almost every joke that is funny is funny for about a minute but is stretched to 5 minutes making it tedious and unfunny.

I completely agree. The first few seasons of SNL had enough talent to often sustain the humor all the way through a skit, but the show has been coasting for a very long time on less talented comedians.

Just for laughs, I looked up Caddyshack on Rotten Tomatoes. I can't remember ever seeing such a big difference in scores between all critics and top critics. 75% of all critics thought Caddyshack was a good movie, while only 17% of top critics liked it.

that's perfect. I like seeing that difference too since it speaks to who might like the movie. I love the ones where almost all the top critics love it but not many of the non-top critics do.

I don't have the time but that would be a fun study to try and see which movies have the largest discrepencies.

I had the same issues with Wayne's World and Christmas Vacation and yes, Ghostbusters, where they're not nearly as funny to me anymore. Some things are tied pretty closely to their time periods, apparently. And I don't mean that they have topical jokes (although that was often the case in Wayne's World), but just don't seem to hold up in terms of the style of humor that might have been hot for its era but doesn't have any major appeal now. Chevy Chase smirking and yukkin' it up in Christmas Vacation might have seemed pretty funny in the 80's, but that alone doesn't equal comedy any more. I can't speak to Caddyshack as I haven't seen that recently. I wonder how Stripes would do. I thought that was really funny years ago.

I recently rewatched all of the Austin Powers movies. They do suffer somewhat from that... Mike Myers yukkin' it up and saying "oh, behave!" a hundred times doesn't really cut it now... but I will say that those movies are still at least relatively funny, because of the clever comedy gags throughout. And a lot of that is on the Dr. Evil side of things. But still, compared to Wayne's World, Austin Powers held up better for me. Granted, it's much more recent (late 90's/early 2000's), and doesn't hold up entirely well, either.

Not strictly "comedy" films, per se, but Groundhog Day and The Princess Bride are still as great as ever. In both cases, there is a more enduring and interesting story, and the comedy within is more universal, and not cheap or topical.

Continuing our tour through the sex comedies of the 80s I have now watched Risky Business, Class, Revenge of the Nerds and The Sure Thing. The fascinating thing is how often the women are treated as having no plot lines of their own (The Sure Thing being the rare example). They exist for the men to ogle or win, and don't have a character arc in the slightest.

Risky Business didn't hold up, with the main characters being generally repellent (the quasi-remake we watched recently "The Girl Next Door" is much better). The only thing of note was at the end when the credits rolled I spotted a name and exclaimed "Curtis Armstrong!", and my wife turned to me and said "Yes, Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, didn't you spot him earlier, he was the best friend", and I wasn't sure to what to make of my wife's deep knowledge of 80s sex comedy character actors (yes I didn't know any better in my teens, but surely she should have).

Class was only interesting in that my wife didn't know anything at all about the movie and so was genuinely shocked by the plot twist, in spite of it being spoiled by almost every bit of marketing material, so it goes to show how much better films can be unspoiled. Because of this when I showed my kids Cocoon yesterday I went to great efforts for them to go in blind and was rewarded for it.

Revenge of the Nerds, well IF (and this is a big IF) you can ignore the racism, sexism and homophobia, it was the funniest of the bunch. I can't imagine a film being made now where taking naked pictures of girls without their knowledge and selling them would pass as good fun, but then there are many producers/directors/etc in Hollywood who just don't have a clue. I remember many years ago being horrified watching "Loser" and "Sorority Boys" having moments where roofies were portrayed as a natural and humorous part of campus life, and a good way to get laid, so things definitely got worse in this regard and hopefully will be better.

So taking into account the fact that I was uncomfortable with aspects of ROTN, The Sure Thing is the one that holds up best, mainly because the female lead gets equal screen time and has her own journey, and the character arc of learning that sex is better between two individuals who care for each other was more noble (and that life isn't only about achievement and that one should learn to have fun). I would love to have these character arcs sex-switched and have the stuffy boy learn to have fun, as I can only think of examples where the male is the fun one and the female the repressed one.

So on the first weekend without my wife and toddler I watched Robocops, old and new.

It's clear that the new one is trying to emulate the old one, in some ways, but it takes itself too seriously. Gone are the funny commercials and news, robot shooting dick... and man... Clarence Boddicker is just the better villain. I really appreciate that the new one is trying to make it current, and I think they did a decent job on it. I like it, but nowhere near the old one. I *loathed* Samuel L Jackson in the new Robocop. But then again, he's supposed to be an asshole in themovie.

Sevej wrote: I *loathed* Samuel L Jackson in the new Robocop. But then again, he's supposed to be an asshole in themovie.

Admit it: t'was the hair, wasn't it?

Finding Dory was just alright. Starts great for a while, and ends strong, but there are long stretches in the middle where stuff just happens. Finding Nemo was much more engaging and inventive throughout.

Those extra characters from the aquarium in Nemo really add a lot. In Dory, she's often alone which was scary and sad for my girl. Destiny and Bailey are never really with them so that really hurts the momentum. Destiny is boring as hell too.

Watched Zero Theorem, Terry Gilliam's latest. Christoph Waltz was awesome, the visuals were great, but the story/plot was very weak. It felt like someone imitating Gilliam and getting all of the technical stuff just right, but in the end they didn't have anything to really say and had no idea where they were going.

The Shallows is a'ight. I really enjoyed it up to a point – beautiful location and cool shots switching between above and below the water, and a reasonably engaging and tense survival story. But at a certain point it got predictable, and cartoonish in terms of the shark behavior. And in the end, it probably would have been better time spent just watching Jaws again.

I like Jaws and consider it a classic, but my favorite shark movie is actually Deep Blue Sea.