I havent enjoyed a film like this in a long time. Really, Lilly Tomlin and Bette Midler and the whole cast were so great. Great film!
I can’t really follow up this final episode of cobra Kai with anything else. It was so intense, and I mean like in every way, that I might need to binge view the office now because nothing can follow up how good this was. I almost feel like this final episode will be remembered like the original karate kid
This movie made me soooo happy!! Amazing return of two of the greatest dudes in cinematic history. A breath of hilarious, scientific, good vibes — George Carlin is smiling down:sunglasses:
The compassion between Cassavetes and the kid in this film is amazing, check it with an open mind if you’re a mans man type. I guarantee you've never seen this level of relationship between men in any other movie, especially with a kid. Some great dialogue with cassavetes and the kid, a few extremely moving scenes, and a nutty soundtrack at times. Any fan will see this as a lost gem from his “Woman Under the Influence”,”Gloria” era. Anybody who has no idea what to expect, they don't make movies like this anymore.
Remember, Cassavetes made the first interracial indie film “Shadows” in a the 60s. In a sense, Marvin & Tige is a what if Cassavetes character in Shadows hit middle age as a vagabond. And then meets the other vagabond, who happens to be a kid. Won't spoil the film and explain the whole premise of why the kid is homeless but, man oh man, this is the type of movie that comes once is huge blue moon.
Chris Walken shines as Doctor Fang in one of his best roles as a working actor next to his groundbreaking portrayal as Nosferatu in Brainstorm. Film theorist Gary Gnu names Balls of Fury as peak Hollywood comedic cinema broiling together chickens and tadurkens in within the global arena of ping pong. And thats just the beginZ - Stryker T Rambz the protag pulls a stellar creme de la dentre with a dramaturge the likes of a modern Lawrence of Balboa. If you’ve missed this stunner catch it while you’re still in the marmalade because time waits for no one, let alone you jersey boy sanchez.
Can you name one brown artist -- and I mean a non black and non white artist or actor? That's alot of people in the world today but no one can be found in media to really represent that range. I'll give you a minute to think about it...
Chances are you just had a real hard time. Most of you won't be able to because the binary of black and white is such a dominant control mechanism that when an artist like Maya appears the intitial spectacle of "Error! Life is not black and white!" ends with a whimpering cancellation -- and return to the black-white dynamic. You are just as guilty as I am, and she was, for it.
This documentary is Maya's own chronological year by year log of her own rise from UK streets, as documentarian for Elastica to the fated Superbowl show where she is crucified and exiled from America. However, it's much more than that when you look at it as more complicated than the documentary even get's into. I would say M.I.A's lineage is more Cesar Chavez, Frida Kahlo, Adam Yauch, and Willie Guthrie than Rosa Parks, Malcolm X or the Stonewall Riots. If you understand what I mean then you know. She's complicated. What she represents is complex to most people who live in a very myopic view of culture. I don't blame them or you -- since we are bombarded with binary cultural leaders all day. The little voices hardly get a spoonful of soup unless they make a ruckus.
The documentary asks if she is less a social justice symbol or more a force in time. Is she her own narrative of herself as this reluctant savior for the Tamil people? Or is she a multiplicity of issues, the result of things being arranged in a certain way at the time? I'm not sure a white artist with activist roots could ever be stuck in the same corner as an artist who originates from a place undergoing active genocide can be. Unless of course said white artist made the genocide their issue without being there (Cue Kony 2012.) M.I.A came close to being that because she sort of was "in the mix" of the genocide, or at least tried to be by placing herself there. For M.I.A fans you know. This idea of going back to the homeland to represent the homelands people is a rough slog (read "Seasons of Migrations to the North"), its a heavy load to carry and it almost never resolves to any success for the artist or activist. It historically resolves to sleeping with the dominant race and getting your jollies on despite your people's interests. That's what "Seasons of Migrations" was about -- an African dude sets out to France to achieve success and spends his time having trysts with the white bourgeoisie as his hometown floods to extinction -- and it bares a striking similarity with Maya's tale.
The larger point of celebrities trying to save the downtrodden and failing though still stands. Even the white folks that do this are crucified; the Rachel Corrie incident in Gaza for example (look it up), Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys' speech at the VMAs (he denounced Islamophobia, and was the lone voice to do so), Brando sending an indigenous woman to collect his Oscar (Brando was protesting Big Oil raiding indigenous land.) These folks were either unalived or tossed off as nutsos for taking these positions. And the issues they were taking a stand on continue to this day unphased by their grandstanding! Why is this a pattern with celebrities? Rather, why do they just say something and then stop at the rest of the work required? ANSWER: Because it's not enough to just take a stand. Community activism is an artform that celebrities seem profoundly unskilled at.
I personally believe she was robbed by the NFL. 16 million dollars, c'mon! That's forcing her into slavery to pay back. It wasn't really that bad and she didn't need to be crucified or made into an example. Didn't Dre and Eminem do the same? Didn't Janet Jackson show full nudity? Placed under a microscope I wonder if the NFL has fined anyone else that ever did something risque who performed at a half-time show. I wonder if that one aspect of the film presents the moral story of M.I.A's rise and fall in America. Or, does it only serves to show the shelf life of non black/non white American artists is around 5 years. Cue Aziz Ansari -- the other jack of all trades, master of none time has forgotten. Combined they were both cancelled; one by the liberal feminist left (Aziz) and the other by the conservative populist right (M.I.A), that's the bigger story I saw. She's got a canary in a coalmine story less about her people and her own personal narrative, but about how "others" in general hit a wall that only generational wealth can solve.
And yes, I realize the word hole I just put myself in since her marrying into Seagrams fortune is what probably kept her alive. And even for a potential revival. I bet she knows exactly how to solve the Sri Lankan issue by now. She commanded fleets of ships for her videos and armies of arabs for "Bad Girls", I bet this is not the last time we hear from M.I.A. I just hope on round 2 she reads "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky and does the other 14 steps required to create community change. ;)
These guys reminded me of the 'better men' from my mediterranean side of the family. If you enjoyed Zorba the Greek, Lion of the Desert and Scorcese street gangster films simultaneously (or you're a woman who has a thing for Anthony Quinn-like men), instead of the Costnerian didactic (my word for plain white bread actors that come out of the military industrial complex to serve some 1940's version of cowboy america), you'll love the Projectionist.
Filled with little Pacino-types that talk with accents and have unique facial tick and lanky Ferraras wanking around Little Italy and Palestinian neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Astoria talking about the good old days of porn theaters on 42nd street.
The last film I saw at Cinema Village before Hurricane Sandy made Los Angeles a better idea (before these damn wild fires), was The Master with Philip Seymore Hoffman & Joaquin Pheonix. A great little film at the time that was only playing at the arthouse theater. Cinema Village. Well -- I come to find out, howdy friggan doo, its owned by the protagonist of this documentary. As a a matter of fact, this whole documentary is about him. It's not about Anthony Quinn although, spoiler, you will feel by the end that this guy who owns all the little theaters in tri-state, is the last real New Yorker. The kind that lived off "heart movies", like he referred to Last Tango in Paris lines around the porn theater block back in 82. You're going to leave this film wishing you had real people in your life that made movie theaters for a living. I want this man to adopt me.
Don DeLillo wrote White Noise (the book) way back in the 80s. Baumbachs screen adaptation here is a hilarious existential crisis stream of consciousness film where Kylo Ren is a H:tler expert, his wife Frances Ha is hopped up on 'Dylar' trying to fend off her fear of death and a cloud of gas is unleashed on their little 80s retro-style suburb. I wonder if the other non-meta thinking commentors watched Wandavision and thought "This is a real pretentious sitcom!" It's satire about academia and family life. Note that - it's satire about ACADEMIA and FAMILY LIFE. I'm repeating that because some of the others didn't get that and saw the film as pretending to be academic. IT"S RIFFING ON IT NOT BEING IT. How you can look at Don Cheadles professor of "Elvis Studies" in any other way but hilariously, is beyond me. Lighten up tankies! The war is in the mind not in the universities on your children!
Despite a conventional narrative this film relies on engaging into intellectual combat with you, the audience, as if it was the book. Advertising, media and consumerism are its own character in the film - occupying the background or 'white noise' around the family. This is important to grasp or else you will be turned off by the cacophony and quick pacing of the scenes. It's not hiding it's literary connection to post-modernism so the dialogue is RICH IRONY and the scenes are high-satire concept. That means two things, it's not for your average bear and if you do get it, it delivers the good a'plenty. For other appreciators of good things this has REWATCH value. If you have not considered the futility of your own mortality in false inflation post-pandemic greedworld you will struggle to understand Baumbachs pseudo-metaphorical pandemic told via DeMilos early 80s polemic. If you are muddling through since lockdown and wondering if there will ever be normality in media dominated, soma dependance culture - this movie is for you.
2 Parts Wes Anderson 2 parts Paul Thomas Anderson 2 parts Godard and 2 parts Salvador Dali.
Was another fine hilarious season we should be grateful we got. Laughs in every scene, every episode, a solid plot arc, conflict. These comments however are absolutely insufferable. Bunch of energy vampires up in here! You make Colin Ferguson proud.
Love the sense of space this movie creates. The dialogue about architecture in Columbus is super interesting too. Architecture fans gonna love this movie. Not many like it. What makes it though is the small details like how the shots are composed and the actors contrasting situations. It feels overall like the entire film forces you to examine opposites in yourself and where you’re stuck. I’m saying this because Cho’s character is having to face his dad not being their for him but now having to be present for his father in a coma. And Haley Richardsons character must leave her mom to become somebody in a life.
Don’t get this movie wrong! It tackles huge shifts people need to make in life with a gentle slow hand.
Not your average puff piece about a hip-hop legend. The Rickster is not your average rapper from the 80s — he’s the photographer of all those rappers. What makes this doc pseudo-iconic (slightly a masterpiece) is where it goes.
There’s a sequence where he recorded Easy E hanging out, and you realize, “Oh snap, this dude was everywhere.”
From the beginning, you think “Oh snap the Beastie Boys…oh snap Run DMC…oh snap LL Cool J…Oh snap Lawrence Fishburne,”.
Then the Rickster takes a turn. And then another and then your left, “Oh snap, how did the filmmaker even make this?”
Concept : 8.7, Acting : 9.4, Rewatch value : 10, Overall Vibe : 9.2, Lack of Jonah Hill/Seth Rogan/Michael Cera/The guy with the shnoz : 10, Cinematography: 10, Lack of Tommy Lee Jones : 9.6, Lack of Al Pacino : 4
Great well researched and thoroughly comprehensive documentary on the board game world. Yes, it a global phenomenon and yes, it's not as easy as "Oh, let me make a board game." You'll come away learning all the major and minor players along with how kickstarter has become the go-to platform to get games made (if you dare.) Balanced with interviews with creators of Trekking The National Parks, Settler of Catan, Thug Life, Exploding Kittens, Arranged, Pandemic, Rising Sun, Qwirkle, Rayguns and Rockets, Dice Tower, Ice Cool, and Keltis to name a few.
Also get's into the lives of the games designers, some of whom struggle to get pieces made. One sequence outlines the 15 different suppliers a board game designer needs - CRAZY distribution lines in this industry. Another designers family kicks him to the curb mid game design. He has PTSD from Kosovo and gets into how games helped him -- as much as it could have considering his situation. Yet another personal story shows a girl completely kicked out of her culture for her game. Overall there seems to be psychological aspects with designers revolving around neglect, impulsivity, and family dynamics. What I surmised seeing all the different cultures examined is that the core of a successful board game is family support of the designer or the family being the actual creator and their legacy for generations is this one game or a massive multi-pronged alliance made with the big companies. So in effect, a corporate family of support. The litte guys all got overwhelmed and seemed somewhat stressed to the marrow (other than Rayguns and Rockets guy, who ironically had his daughter making the graphics for the art.) Nashra Balagamwala the pakistani creator of Arranged is drop dead gorgeous by the way, although I do wonder if she was kicked out of her culture how Arrange could possible become a hit.
Well worth the watch for any creative person out there to see what you're up against. The stuff you need to be made out of to be able to pull off the next Monopoly. ;)
Was surprised how great this was, the dramatizations of Madonnas life were :100:, felt like her and the time. Great stories from her early roommates and bf’s!
Every scene was hilarious. Patton Oswald fit right in. Even the opening scene I was like, WTF is going on? This is comedy gold.
What’s a fractal? Why is Mandelbrot, their founder, on the run from a Mexican drug cartel? Who is Ennio Montoya? These questions and others are not fully answered since half of them are discontinuous geometries.
In this fantabulisimo documentary about fractals we first learn about Mandelbrot's youth. His grooming under the tutelage of a formalist uncle and his escape to eccentric mathematicians.
Told primarily by the man himself intercut with narrator, Martin Shaw, who seems like he’s on a 2 hour fractal safari. The movie runs like a scripted autobiography.
Good editing, montages and best of all fractal art leaning more on the connection with complex mathematical concepts like p0 = z, pn+1 = pn2 + z which if you plug-in to a casio will reveal the location of that Mandelbrotian Mexican treasure.
Jeebuz Christmas what a flik. Ethan Hawke is fantastic sauce as a preacher caught between his faith and his corporate polluting Church. Brings up good points about corporate polluters being big funders of Churches in the US and should get an Oscar or Academy nomination which it wont because those same corporate polluters would rather you not see this.
I relate with wanting to play out a timeline where I have a son — for a few hours. I can also see how Nathan fans who have kids and are living their best lives in Oregon with family (or in a 2br rental with a kid) won’t relate. Quite possibly some single moms will get bent on Nathans apparent inability to have foreseen the kid getting attached. It happened to me as a kid. A natural consequence of sh:tty fathers. That's what I saw as Nathan tackled with what he had done. I saw all my mother's boyfriends realizing how immoral it was to fake dad me. If it gives you single moms any recompense this will likely be a lifelong issue for your boy to not have a good dad. Chances are the kid in the show continues to look for a dad until he is one, or at least until some politician becomes his daddy.
Those contradistinctions is what makes Nathan Felder a growing meta-cognitive comedian who hits us all in differing ways. His trying to figure out peoples dreams until he is left alone to figure out his own. That is what makes The Rehearsal’s final moral message so poignant to our times; the grass of our lives may not necessarily be greener after our futile manifestations arrive even with infinite rehearsals but "monkeys paw" and all -- the show must go on. Or better said by the late Buddhist monk Thicht Nhat Hanh, when asked by a disciple, "Master what is the best path in life?" He replied simply, "Decency is the absence of strategy." And it seems that is what Nathan has learned here at least until his next wild concept meta-comedy show. You may have gotten something else or maybe nothing. Just a stare into the screen wishing for another "Nathan for you" to soothe whatever rehearsal you're in the middle of.
An odd one. Bit of a pollywog stew with emphasis on the pollywog. An anxiety ridden bloke connects with a relatable but equal parts Benny + Joon’ish / Ed Scissorhandish could’a been milf. Shes got a unique relationship with her son - unique enuff to say this film got single motherhood more right than the best “straight” films on the sub. One part romantic comedy, two parts avante garde light, half a part magical realism. Cool ending too. Felt like life.
Jennifer Connolly plays Virginia, a single-mother in the middle of America with psychologically traumatized past. Come for the sexually charged scenes with Ed Harris, as a cheating Mormon sheriff running for Mayor. Watch Connolly stun in PG rated sex scene looking as good as ever clad in full dominatrix gear taking it hard and heavy. Stay for her performance of Virginia, a broken woman played to with an intimate desecration as she arranges last minute heist to leave her son something before her failing health takes hold.
Dick Tipton (Ed Harris) is a ridiculously arrogant alpha male Sherrif without a shred of responsibility towards Virginia or her son. He's only in it for the pooyani. Film legend Yeardley Smith plays the over-concerned social worker with a convincing southern drawl that makes you yearn for more. Connolly overalls feels lost in a sacred time towards an afterlife fantasy as she attempts to make up lie after lie, raise her son quite unsuccessfully, and manipulate her life around the few sex romps she has with the Sherrif.
The film is framed through her sons eyes. The actor playing her son is forgettable which is the only loss this film suffers from. It's a pretty big loss though, considering how much screen time his part of the story has.
Scenes of him casually in the house while Connolly get's railed by Harris make up the first part of the film. The second part is a series of vignettes between the son and a local girl, possibly Harris' characters daughter, with interdispersed scenes of Connolly breaking down or getting boned by Harris in various ways. I felt the sons story with his pals had a weaker dynamic playing under such a heavy talent load on top. I would of liked to see more of Connolly on top of Harris as well. The film could of been carried by Connolly and Harris' sex scenes, like a Wild Orchid meets Mother hybrid, instead it became a sidestory against a cops and robbers meets dazed and confused tragedy. The third act, is entirely this, complete with a rebellion, a Taxi Driver type of "campaign" bombing and Virginia's poetic stand-off.
The story overall invokes a tinge of Tennessee Williams "Baby Doll" meeting notes of Brie Larson's unconditional-love-under-extreme-circumstance performance in "Room." It falls short due where the bulk of scenes are given to a young actor who simply does not serve the overall momentum. Virginia shines when Connolly is on screen and simply put, due to her single performance it could of been added to what has become "The Fallen Single Mother" canon. It fails in its vision. When you have Jennifer Connolly as a blonde southern girl you want Cassavetes not Paul Thomas Anderson. They should of focused on her under the influence of knowing her own mortality was arye and the story taking place around that. It's a better way to understand the film if you're going in fresh. I hate to do this to Sarah from Labyrinth but this is a 6.5 out 10. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
Meandering french alcoholics binded by deep voids they fill with sexual proclivities perform hilarious long scenes of dialogue overwrought with inane existential banter dripping with dark comedic pathos. If you dig Truffaut, Jarmusch or Venders you’ll love it.
Watch it for George C Scott dressing up as a porno director.
Worth it for Dunsts mellifluous mounds of memories. The scene she rolls 10
phat boys in her bra is the new American tradition amongst the gals. Very representative of the inner world of a blonde with a house and sh:t ton of ganja. If your life is 24/7 puff puff and you lost your mission in life, check out this sleeper hit. Underestimate d!
Boom bomp on the flish flap makes your coonswoggle do the boondoggle. Read more of this and other comments on my phat 90s rucksack, pauper boy!
"Two men in Town" is what happens to a good idea and great actors that could of easily been an Oscar winner break-out film but turns to a dud because of bad direction. Whitaker plays William Garnett a cop killer straight out of prison who struggles with his anger issues while people in this tiny New Mexico town mess with him. His attempts to build a life are snafued by Harvey Kietel, the sheriff, who has other plans for him due to some bizarre mixture of vengeance and islamophobia. Brenda Blethyn with a Tennessee accent was great and lightens up the movie wherever she is. Forest Whitaker and Kietel could of played their roles better but it was good enough to watch once. That's the good part.
Well made, good laughs, tough subject.
Problematic pacing but its Gilliams next addition to the Brazil universe. I should be lucky to get anything from such a prolofic director. Unfortunately, it took me 3 viewings to finish and I couldn’t shake the feeling it was “required viewing” over wanting to watch. It earned its 6 stars, it seemed hard to make.
There's little reason to try and beat Bowies Tesla (Christopher Nolans "The Prestige" 2006) but Ethan Hawke doesn't even try. I expected better from him. This was either made by the hands of a depressed director or an unqualified producer -- or an AI deepfake movie making program. It feels like somewhere within the tesla coil of this film production schedule a major aspect got gutted from an original version and boiled down, like a transylvanian bat, to this tortured piece of crap. Think Welsch Rabbit in a Duck Soup.
No way he’s not in on it. The actors around him are not exactly Meisner Method actors. To do a prank over this many days with actors and cameras needs improv pros and camera olympiads, its impossible. With that being said there’s lolz for sure, but is it Nathan For You/Rehearsal level believability? Sad to say, by episode 3 the guys in on it. Who cares though. Why do I care? This and other BS on my next Trakt comment. Follow me.
Despite its questionable premise, the movie is a surprisingly heartfelt and hilarious journey if you can bear the idea of your parents cat-fishing you
The comedic performances by legends Patton Oswalt and Rachel Dratch (of SNL fame) are excellent, and their chemistry is palpable. Together these two can carry the film and at times I wish they did. Oswalt's portrayal of Chuck, a hopelessly estranged and morally bankrupt father, is especially noteworthy. His character's journey is executed with comedic precision and emotional warmth, making it one of the highlights of the movie.
The movie is also introduces the world to James Morosini's directing talents who also is the lead actor (Oswalts seemingly autistic son.) Morosini's direction and storytelling are solid, and the movie is filled with moments of insight, humor, and heart. His acting brings Jake Gyllenhalls Donnie Darko performance to mind (without the bunny rabbits.)
Overall, "I Love My Dad" is a 6.5 film, enjoyable and thought-provoking enough that is sure to entertain. I recommend it to anyone looking for a good laugh, who can endure the cringe factor of watching a son be hoodwinked into loving an internet avatar by his own father, and to those who are interested in the work of Patton Oswalt and Rachel Dratch.
