Amph What was the last movie you saw?

You do make me laugh so.

 

No, seriously. Can someone explain this to me? I really am being earnest here. It was acceptable enough for two hours, though I didn't enjoy it a great deal. Regardless, though, the flaws I felt were there had nothing to do with my expecting something other than what turned out to be the case. Indeed, the real problem was that my predictions were all too accurate.

 

He's probably just talking about how it was advertised as a horror film when it really wasn't.

 

I wonder if that is for the same reasons as me. I hated the anachronisms and desperately reaching references in movies like Hot Tub Time Machine and Take Me Home Tonight and some others. In addition to that maybe it's just that younger actors in some movies and showsset then aren't really coached on how to talk with the inflection and tone all wrong, or the script is written to try to appeal to younger viewers.
This morning I watched that volleyball movie from the late '80s--I mean, 1990 Side Out, with C. Thomas Howell and Peter Horton. It's on Crackle, a free streaming service included with my TV that I rarely use because of the commercials and inability to rewind and pick up where I left off, like if I fall asleep. I couldn't really remember when this movie came out and it looks and feels like it's out of early 1988, save for some of the music, but it was made in 1989 and put out in early 1990. I couldn't believe it even reused Kenny Loggins' "Playing with the Boys" from Top Gun and in a volleyball scene. The movie, which I hadn't seen, was a sort of fun look back and not disappointing since it's what I expected.
The same goes for St. Elmo's Fire, which I have seen a lot. It's like the previous generation's Reality Bites, and it makes for an interesting contrast when watching those two movies back to back. Still, you can't watch this without thinking of that time in 1985 when the Brat Pack was everywhere, and thinking of whatever else you were doing at the time, if you were there.
I watched Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. The streaming version on Netflix doesn't look bad. It hasn't been given a decent DVD or Blu Ray release so don't expect it to be perfectly clear. I don't remember but it's obvious the movie was made with the 4:3 aspect ratio, so it's not cropped and not pan-and-scan. I can imagine a lot of people now would call it "dated" simply because tech savvy or pseudosavvy people are too focused on modern effects that they care too much what is used to make movies. I still feel immersed in the landscape and the excitement of scenes like the bee flight. It's one of those movies where viewers surely imagine how cool it would be to experience it, at least in the movie. In real life there would be far too many bugs to handle. I went to Disney World not long after this but right before the related attraction was added. This was one of the few videotapes I bought a long time ago, as it was priced-to-buy ("you do know this isn't for rent but for sale, right?" I remember a clerk asking me) so this movie is etched into my mind, misheard quotes and misunderstood stuff and all.

 

American Hustle, rewatch and liked it more the second time.

Though I couldn't help but think that everyone of the five main characters was in a superhero movie

 

Wow. Maybe my memory is just poor. I only recall reading some reviews in the weekend prior, which mostly discussed the color coding and the allegory for the "post-9/11 world."

 

Last of the Buccaneers. Paul Henreid stars as Jean Lafitte, a pirate and smuggler who lucked into being a minor hero of the War of 1812, which, with some historical massaging, makes him upstanding enough to be the protagonist of a pirate flick without sticking Slam Stoneblast in. It's pretty generic entertainment, but it's fun enough. It looks good in Technicolor, and Henreid has a Don Rickles-type joke-cracking sidekick who got a few laughs. Nondescript but functional swashbuckler.

Foreign Correspondent. Outstanding. A 1940 Hitchcock thriller, it stars Joel McCrea (excellently all-American) as a crime reporter sent to Europe to get the story of preparations for what would be World War II. McCrea is hilariously out of his depth, having no idea about anything that's going on, speaking nothing but English, and immediately getting completely distracted by an attractive woman involved with a peace group. Even so, he manages to stumble onto a Nazi conspiracy, and it becomes a first-rate paranoid conspiracy thriller. Hitchcock manages to be amazingly cynical and flippant about the oncoming war, mining it for great comedy. It's actually a hilarious movie as well as a supremely effective thriller. Hitch's great touch for comedy comes through but doesn't cut the tension at all. There are some great sequences, as when McCrea finds the bad guys in a windmill, and Hitchcock perfectly uses the wild geometry of the interior for a suspenseful spying scene, or the crash of a plane at the end. Just a magnificent film.

 

American Graffiti.
First time seeing it in a long while.
Pretty good movie.

 

For sure. Unfortunately, this one opened so weak to begin with that there wasn't much word of mouth to go around. I'm guessing these are/will be cleaning up on DVD though. Sabotage just screams "Rainy day Red Box".

 

That's not something in the movie that is misleading, but the marketing campaign. I could understand if you meant the plot was misleading, which it intentionally was. That's one reason why I try not to watch trailers.

 

We're the Millers - decent comedy that did its job of entertaining. The acting wasn't that great, and the plot was predictable, but that's standard fare for a comedy. It's worth a rent.
Don Jon - garbage. Skip it.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - I didn't realize this was a prequel to "Clear and Present Danger" until I watched the bonus footage. With that said, it now makes sense why the movie felt like set up for a different movie while trying to find a storyline that was relevant for the current generation, but that storyline felt secondary to the setup of Jack Ryan as a person. At the end of the day, I’d say it was decent and worth a rent, but ultimately it felt like it was trying to be like Cruise’s Mission:Impossible movies.

 

X-Men: Days of Future Past

 

Bad Santa finally showed up on Netflix. It is without a doubt the finest R-rated comedy of the 21st century, and perhaps the greatest heist comedy ever made. It combines a nearly perfect ensemble with by a wide margin the best performance of Billy Bob Thornton's career, up to Fargo at any rate. It is the Die Hard of black comedies, launching its own cinema sub genre, e.g. Horrible Bosses 1 and 2, We are the Millers and of course Bad Teacher.

 

I liked Don Jon's story, in how it deconstructed that perfect goddess of a woman to reveal her to be superficial, highly aggravating, and desiring of lazy do-nothing boys to serve as pets at their own convenience. The best scene was the one in the store where he mentioned cleaning his own floors.
Some others of note I've seen recently: Tiger Eyes. My curiosity was piqued seeing this was based on one of Judy Blume's more mature books (and directed by her son). It's a nice little story about a girl (Willa Holland) whose mother moves the family across the country to stay with relatives in photogenic Alamagordo, New Mexico.
Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate. I couldn't wait for this to end. I saw the original a while back but never was interested in this enough to check it out, until it came to Netflix streaming.

 

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Oh how I love seeing movies that matter to me long after everyone else is done discussing them

I liked it plenty. Can't help but feel it would have done better to hew to the comic in some places instead of trying to 'go big' at every opportunity though.

And the JFK assassination Easter egg? Priceless.

 

THANKS ERIK

 

It's also one of better Christmas-themed films ever made; happy to see you loved this film.

 

It is, and I do! If this movie doesn't fill you with Christmas cheer, then nothing can or ever will.