Jay 30987 Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 Welcome to the replacement for the "newer films" thread; I'll be making these one per year to discuss the films of that year; Anything older can go into the "older films" thread, unless it's a 2020 film. I don't know if any 2021 films are even out yet, but when they are out, discuss them here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 The old 'Newer Films' thread was getting too big to be kept alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 6220 Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 18 minutes ago, Jay said: I don't know if any 2021 films are even out yet, but when they are out, discuss them here! This thread will have a dozen pages before anyone even finds a 2021 film to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KK 3251 Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 Does the old "newer films" thread become a part of the "Older Films" thread now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted January 2, 2021 Author Share Posted January 2, 2021 I mean I'm not gonna merge it, just leave it as it is. It'll just slowly fall off the first page of GD like any other thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted January 2, 2021 Author Share Posted January 2, 2021 Looks like the first 2021 movie I am anticipating is NOMADLAND on Feb 19 scratch that, I forgot LOCKDOWN is supposed to come out this month! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2021 Heck, here's all the ones I'm currently looking forward to LOCKDOWN (January) NOMADLAND (Feb 19) CHAOS WALKING (Mar 5) THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK (Mar 12) NO TIME TO DIE (April 2) A QUIET PLACE PART II (April 23) BLACK WIDOW (May 7) FREE GUY (May 21) UNCHARTED (July 16) THE TOMORROW WAR (July 23) JUNGLE CRUISE (July 30) THE GREEN KNIGHT (July 30) DEEP WATER (Aug 13) THE BEATLES GET BACK (Aug 27) DEATH ON THE NILE (Sep 17) DUNE (Oct 1) THE LAST DUEL (Oct 15) ETERNALS (Nov 5) WEST SIDE STORY (Dec 10) SPIDER-MAN 3 (Dec 17) bollemanneke 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bollemanneke 2870 Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 Why would anyone want to see a movie about the pandemic? I want to forget this virus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted January 2, 2021 Author Share Posted January 2, 2021 If you're referring to Lockdown, that isn't about the pandemic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bollemanneke 2870 Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 Huh? IMDB says it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 1 hour ago, bollemanneke said: Huh? IMDB says it is. No, it doesn't. Please stop the spreading of misinformation. Words have consequences. JoeinAR 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bollemanneke 2870 Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 Wow, relax, it's just a movie. Sorry for being confused by 10 titles that are all variations on the word lockdown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 But there's only one Lockdown in 2021. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted January 3, 2021 Author Share Posted January 3, 2021 Lockdown is a heist moving that takes placing during the pandemic, but it isn't about the pandemic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bollemanneke 2870 Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 That qualified as 'about the pandemic' for me. All I meant was that I do not need anything set during the pandemic in the near future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted January 3, 2021 Author Share Posted January 3, 2021 That doesn't make sense to me. It's about jewelry thieves. It's not about scientists and politicians managing the pandemic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted January 24, 2021 Author Share Posted January 24, 2021 Locked Down The first 2021 film I've seen is a total dud. The great cast and director and completely undermined by a weak script that I can't believe Liman thought was good enough to film. The whole time it felt like a first draft that never had a bit of revision done to any part of it. It's a heist film that doesn't even tell you it's a heist film until the third act. It's basically a relationship drama with occasionally funny moments as a once happy couple (Anna Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor) that have broken up are forced to still live together due to COVID lockdowns (the film is set in late March 2020 London). As they try to get by, various elements of their jobs get peppered in until Hathaway finally realizes with like 30 minutes of the movie to go that they have a chance to steal a £3,000,000 diamond and get away with it scott free, and they go about doing so while continuing to have endless conversations about whether they should do it or not The idea is good enough that it could have worked as a 1 hour episode of some show but it is completely bloated out with pointless scenes at almost 2 hours. No reason to watch unless you're a completist for LIman, Hathaway, Ejiofor, Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, Ben Stiller, Ben Kingsley, or a couple other familiar faces that show up for a scene or two Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Starts off really good (first 30 minutes) only to be silt up in an unfocused Oscar-baiting mess. 4/10 Bilbo and JoeinAR 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Bastard 7770 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 She looks hot in that other new movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 I was more into the one on the right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naïve Old Fart 7517 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 So, Alex...you're more into Daphne, than Velma? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Who? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Bastard 7770 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Is that that chick from those other movies? Lily something? She's cute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 7 hours ago, The Big Man said: Is that that chick from those other movies? Lily something? She's cute. That's where I recognized her from! Didn't you fall asleep with that one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Bastard 7770 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 It was shit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 The original was Hitchcock's first movie in America. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Bastard 7770 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Great film from Selznick! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bollemanneke 2870 Posted February 5, 2021 Share Posted February 5, 2021 The dig. Much better than I thought t would be. Carey Mulligan continues to impress, though I can’t help wondering what Nicole Kidman would have done with the role. Ralph Fiennes is amazing. I loved how his voice was always brimming with goodness and shame on the audio-describer for mispronouncing his name during the credits. The kid grew on me, but I could have done without him. I did love some of the scene transitions. The score has some fine cues, but there’s also an annoying repetitive piano theme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 8 hours ago, bollemanneke said: Ralph Fiennes is amazing. He is. But he only gets room to shine in the first 30 minutes of the movie. After that the movie becomes overcrowded, unfocused and sorta forgets about him. I really wasn't interested in the Oscar baiting romance of characters that don't even matter to the story. bollemanneke and Bilbo 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bollemanneke 2870 Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 Yeah, I sort of agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeinAR 1851 Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 On 1/30/2021 at 10:07 AM, AC1 said: The original was Hitchcock's first movie in America. A masterpiece and tremendous score. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 On 2/6/2021 at 11:48 AM, bollemanneke said: Yeah, I sort of agree. What I didn't know is that the Sutton Hoo site is considered to be the most important and greatest archaeological discovery in British history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo 3622 Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 The Dig. it was shit. Fiennes and Mulligan were great. Cinematography really captured that hazy English moor/bog look. But it had a real bang of “Made for Sunday afternoons in ITV 4” feel to it. That sort of film has its place but this was overhyped I feel. Netflix for great docs and tv shows from time to time but they’ve yet to make an impact with films. It was a very poor man’s Atonement. Also, and at no point would someone do their second hour solo in a Spitfire. That’s just dumb. On 2/6/2021 at 7:47 AM, AC1 said: He is. But he only gets room to shine in the first 30 minutes of the movie. After that the movie becomes overcrowded, unfocused and sorta forgets about him. I really wasn't interested in the Oscar baiting romance of characters that don't even matter to the story. The male character is a total invention too so it’s clear he was just included to add a romance subplot that didn’t really belong in the movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KK 3251 Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 Malcolm & Marie God, that was insufferable. I mean, the premise is sound enough. But Levinson is clearly no Linklater. Instead of exploring the dynamics of a relationship with nuance, it's just an incredibly angry mouthpiece for Levinson to rant about the "ART" () of film and the film industry. Any little sense of character or humanity is completely overshadowed by wordy monologues that have little to actually do with the people in the room. Human beings certainly don't talk like this. The whole thing is just one big fight, where each one takes 15 minutes at a time, berating each other. Zendaya has talent, but the pedantic writing probably needed an older actress to make it breathe, or find some wit in it. Washington commits 200%, but ends up coming off as a nuisance. There is some intellect at work here, and it's shot with a whole lot of style. Heck, this whole thing could have been a solid short film if it wrapped up in its first 30min. But as it is, it is a colossal, indulgent, exhausting misfire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Stu 15468 Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 I saw a transcript of one of the cumbersome monologues and found myself agreeing with the sentiment but could see being irritated by the self-importance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KK 3251 Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 Yea, there are some solid ideas in there. It's not unintelligent. But there's no artistry in having actors scream out film critique essays at each other. Look to Bergman on how to communicate broader ideas through cinema/theatre. Before Midnight is also a really good example of a couple just taking a hard look at their relationship that feels rooted in character while also sneaking in more "cerebral" reflections. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted February 10, 2021 Author Share Posted February 10, 2021 Am I the only JWFanner who bothered to watch LOCKED DOWN? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edmilson 4503 Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 Probably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted February 10, 2021 Author Share Posted February 10, 2021 I think Doug Liman is one of the best directors working today so I was going to check it out no matter what, and then being scored by Powell was just icing on the cake. It's a shame it turned out to be so thoroughly mediocre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted February 11, 2021 Share Posted February 11, 2021 But ... it's a heist movie. Also, peeps and critics don't like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted February 11, 2021 Author Share Posted February 11, 2021 Liman is a good enough director to make any genre of story interesting, but he didn't in this case Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edmilson 4503 Posted February 14, 2021 Share Posted February 14, 2021 News of the World I watched it only due to JNH's score, which of course works great in the movie, though it's a little more subtle, slower and introspective than his more recent works, which is probably why it's getting a lot of nominations. The film itself is pretty good, with great performances and cinematography, although the plot is predictable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted February 14, 2021 Share Posted February 14, 2021 It was either News Of The World or Red Dot. I opted for Red Dot. A couple is being hunted by a mysterious huntsman in the middle of nowhere. 4/10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo 3622 Posted February 14, 2021 Share Posted February 14, 2021 3 minutes ago, AC1 said: It was either News Of The World or Red Dot. I opted for Red Dot. A couple is being hunted by a mysterious huntsman in the middle of nowhere. 4/10 Netflix just can’t make decent films Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AC1 3805 Posted February 14, 2021 Share Posted February 14, 2021 3 minutes ago, Bilbo said: Netflix just can’t make decent films I like Bird Box. I'd say it's on a par with Darabont's The Mist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt C 437 Posted February 27, 2021 Share Posted February 27, 2021 Tom & Jerry (2021) It's marginally better than the woeful 1992 film (where T&J committed the sin of TALKING), but this turns into a film about human characters in a hotel -- with Tom & Jerry as supporting characters. Kinda misleading. And the vast majority of Tom & Jerry's antics are just unfunny. I don't know what Tim Story was thinking, but you don't score cartoon antics with R&B needle drops. And two, not including the titular theme is akin to doing a Bugs Bunny cartoon without Carl Stalling's arrangement of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down." It's inoffensive and kids will love it, so go for a matinee or stream it on HBO Max. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Penna 2506 Posted February 27, 2021 Share Posted February 27, 2021 News of the World. Pretty good stuff, with great performances and cinematography, although the story felt like it lost momentum during the final 20 minutes or so, only really coming back to life in the last few scenes. I felt that this is not a film that's relying on its score very much - much of it is unscored, and when music does come in, it's mixed rather low with the exception of a few bits. I certainly didn't spot anything obviously unreleased, and I think the album therefore works nicely as a concept album which just happens to contain most, if not all, of the score. In the zoom interview JNH did here, he mentioned that some music was dropped, particularly in the Dime Mountain shootout scene, and I completely agree with what they did - the music comes back in after a moment of huge tension with just wind noises. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted March 9, 2021 Author Share Posted March 9, 2021 The Little Things We watched this last month when it was free on HBO Max. It's one of those weird movies that's both really good an interesting at times, and really bad and cliched at other times. In general, I found the story compelling; It's one of those flicks where characters know things that are influencing their actions but you don't find out all of them until the end, and most of the reveals were good enough. But then there are kooky directing and editorial decisions, like having a million cuts in a simple scene, some weird staging and shot composing, being unclear of positioning at times, and even leaving in scenes that serve no purpose or are contradicted by the next scene. Like in one early scene Denzel goes outside to see his car being towed by Malek's character because Malek needs to go somewhere. Denzel then immediately goes inside the building he was outside of and Malek's character is inside giving a talk to a room full of reporters. What!? It was nice to watch a new, biggish movie for free at home in 4K, and for this one I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater, as the cons ultimately outweighed the pros - but it was still worth watching Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted March 9, 2021 Author Share Posted March 9, 2021 In & Of Itself This is one of the most interesting films I have ever watched in my life. I recommend going in knowing as little as possible and just going along for the ride. At first Derk Delgaudio seems to have very poor stage presence and you might wonder what the point is of watching him slowly begin his stage show, but as it goes on he really creates quite an interesting atmosphere to share interesting and emotional stories (and some sleight of hand magic). Give it time to get going and you may just like it too. It's free on Hulu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted March 9, 2021 Author Share Posted March 9, 2021 Judas and the Black Messiah This was the next of HBO Max's "in theaters now, and on HBO Max for a month too!" after The Little Things and before Tom & Jerry. Well, it just wasn't very good. It's a fascinating story at heart - a black man in 1969 Detroit gets used by the FBI as an informant inside the Black Panthers in exchange for not going to jail, and he gets closer and closer to their leader, Fred Hampton. Unfortunately, the execution of this idea is just, well, it's boring. The movie is boring. It takes forever to get going and has long periods of not much happening in between story developments. Daniel Kaluuya mumbled his way through his performance so much, we actually had to turn the subtitles on early in the film, something we've never had to do for any other film. Lakeith Stanfield and Jesse Plemons were very good. Martin Sheen played a laughable caricature of J Edgar Hoover under bad prosthetics and Lil Rey Howley plays an awkward FBI guy towards the end of the film too. Can't really recommend it to anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 30987 Posted March 9, 2021 Author Share Posted March 9, 2021 I Care A Lot The first real surprise of 2021. After watching the trailer we weren't planning on watching it, it seemed like a lot of the same old, same old. However after hearing some positive feedback from a couple places, we sat down to watch it, and I was VERY pleasantly surprised. This is one of those movies where the trailer doesn't actually give everything away; the story continues to twist and turn with cool and interesting developments. Rosamund Pike plays a scumbag scam-artist who uses a crooked doctor and broken legal system to get assigned as the legal gaurdian of targeted elderly people, and then bleeds them dry of all their life savings as they rot in nursing homes. But when she does this to Dianne Wiest, she awakens a hidden danger in Peter Dinklage and the two begin quite a bitter rivalry...... and that's just the first half hour. I recommend going in without knowing too much about this. It's good good acting, music, and little touches, and only falters with some odd staging and cinematography. But overall, it's well worth a watch, you might be pleasantly surprised too It's free on Netflix LSH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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