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Message
1
Posted on 6/30/24 at 6:19 pm to Rabby
How in the hell did you find 23 movies to watch already?
Posted on 6/30/24 at 9:15 pm to TulaneLSU
Is there any chance we can become friends?
Posted on 7/5/24 at 8:10 am to Havoc
Daddio
When people complain about Hollywood producing nothing new or interesting anymore, they base their opinion primarily on that for which Hollywood advertises: big budget sequels, kiddie comic book stories, and previously licensed items turned into film. What they are missing are the many great small films like Daddio that hit the theaters but for a week or two, quietly running in mostly empty theaters without even the benefit of a standee or a trailer that gets play a few months earlier. When I say that I have seen thirty movies in theaters already this summer, they act surprised, acting as though there have only been five or ten movies released yet.
Daddio is a masterpiece that will largely go unnoticed. Perhaps in four years someone on The Arts Board will accidentally come across this film while wasting his time scrolling through a streaming service’s recommendation system. And he will be treated with that rare occasion of discovering the diamond in the rough of streaming junk. There is good reason Mother, Uncle, and I do not have a TV, and that is because television and streaming shows weaken and destroy the brain, discouraging discourse, connection, writing, and thought. Instead, a return to the theater, three or four times weekly, followed by a round table discussion after each film, is the only form of motion picture and screen entertainment I can commend.
What is real and what is not real is the heart of the matter in Daddio. Metaphysics has rarely been discussed so elegantly and persuasively on film as it has in Sean Penn’s crowning career performance. The details, sordid secrets all of us hide from even our closest loved ones, get us to what matters most: loving relationship, true koinonia, an elusive and scarce experience in our digitized world, that is real and is that for which we desperately crave and need.
The irony in this piece de resistance is that the vehicle through which society and community have been destroyed, the self-isolating car, serves as the threshing floor for true versus false, real and unreal. There is no other setting. And we are not so much trapped as we are invited to share this holy space where real confession and honest reflection and loving acceptance grow from the rich soils of vulnerability like one of Grandfather’s summer tomatoes.
So easy it is to avoid these opportunities, hiding in the bright colors of the world’s new isolating device, the cellular phone. But when the two are juxtaposed, the real, in-person words of voice and the cold 0s and 1s of a text message, there is no mistaking which we need and that for which we were created. Every time texts appear, I could not wait to return to the riveting conversation and masterful performances by Dakota Johnson and Penn. 9/10
When people complain about Hollywood producing nothing new or interesting anymore, they base their opinion primarily on that for which Hollywood advertises: big budget sequels, kiddie comic book stories, and previously licensed items turned into film. What they are missing are the many great small films like Daddio that hit the theaters but for a week or two, quietly running in mostly empty theaters without even the benefit of a standee or a trailer that gets play a few months earlier. When I say that I have seen thirty movies in theaters already this summer, they act surprised, acting as though there have only been five or ten movies released yet.
Daddio is a masterpiece that will largely go unnoticed. Perhaps in four years someone on The Arts Board will accidentally come across this film while wasting his time scrolling through a streaming service’s recommendation system. And he will be treated with that rare occasion of discovering the diamond in the rough of streaming junk. There is good reason Mother, Uncle, and I do not have a TV, and that is because television and streaming shows weaken and destroy the brain, discouraging discourse, connection, writing, and thought. Instead, a return to the theater, three or four times weekly, followed by a round table discussion after each film, is the only form of motion picture and screen entertainment I can commend.
What is real and what is not real is the heart of the matter in Daddio. Metaphysics has rarely been discussed so elegantly and persuasively on film as it has in Sean Penn’s crowning career performance. The details, sordid secrets all of us hide from even our closest loved ones, get us to what matters most: loving relationship, true koinonia, an elusive and scarce experience in our digitized world, that is real and is that for which we desperately crave and need.
The irony in this piece de resistance is that the vehicle through which society and community have been destroyed, the self-isolating car, serves as the threshing floor for true versus false, real and unreal. There is no other setting. And we are not so much trapped as we are invited to share this holy space where real confession and honest reflection and loving acceptance grow from the rich soils of vulnerability like one of Grandfather’s summer tomatoes.
So easy it is to avoid these opportunities, hiding in the bright colors of the world’s new isolating device, the cellular phone. But when the two are juxtaposed, the real, in-person words of voice and the cold 0s and 1s of a text message, there is no mistaking which we need and that for which we were created. Every time texts appear, I could not wait to return to the riveting conversation and masterful performances by Dakota Johnson and Penn. 9/10
Posted on 7/5/24 at 11:17 am to TulaneLSU
How much do they talk in the cab with digital backgrounds? If it's more than 80% of the movie then I've seen movies like this before. It ain't new. Now I'll give any film with Penn in it a chance (except for that action movie he did a while back) but Johnson is a terrible actress imho.
Posted on 9/14/24 at 8:33 pm to TulaneLSU
Transformers One
The Christian life is aimed at reconciliation, a story of enemies becoming friends. Behind Transformers One is the story of how friends become enemies. And the story, unlike Michael Bay’s and Steven Caple’s contributions to the Transformers canon, is engaging, thoughtful, and compelling. It is a real blowback to the original story and characters of the 1980s cartoon. I could certainly live without Bumblebee’s sophomoric and unfunny repeated use of profanity. That the packed theater audience thought it was funny speaks volumes at the level of language intelligence in today’s America.
The film’s backbone is a story of two, divergent ways. One way is consumed with anger and the desire for revenge. This is the way that always leads to ruin and destruction. The other way is meek and forgiving, and ultimately, sacrificial. This second way leads to life.
Optimus Prime, one of many Christ figures in Western literature and film, becomes who he is through sacrifice. Reflecting Christ Jesus, Optimus sacrifices who he was and is, not to become someone. He sacrifices, like Christ, because he loves his friends. Through a perfect and pure sacrificial love, we are redeemed. And then we know with full certainty that there is nothing, not the powers of Megatron or Skyscreamer, no power in the sky above or the crystalline, energy depleted Cybertron below, indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The way of nature? Of getting what is coming to you or your enemy? Of reaping what you think are the just rewards in a zero sum game? Or the way of grace? The way that follows the sacrificial lead of Christ Jesus, who was perfect and pure, and at the right time, died for us all, so that we might live.
Best movie of 2024 so far? Surprising, but yes.
9/10
The Christian life is aimed at reconciliation, a story of enemies becoming friends. Behind Transformers One is the story of how friends become enemies. And the story, unlike Michael Bay’s and Steven Caple’s contributions to the Transformers canon, is engaging, thoughtful, and compelling. It is a real blowback to the original story and characters of the 1980s cartoon. I could certainly live without Bumblebee’s sophomoric and unfunny repeated use of profanity. That the packed theater audience thought it was funny speaks volumes at the level of language intelligence in today’s America.
The film’s backbone is a story of two, divergent ways. One way is consumed with anger and the desire for revenge. This is the way that always leads to ruin and destruction. The other way is meek and forgiving, and ultimately, sacrificial. This second way leads to life.
Optimus Prime, one of many Christ figures in Western literature and film, becomes who he is through sacrifice. Reflecting Christ Jesus, Optimus sacrifices who he was and is, not to become someone. He sacrifices, like Christ, because he loves his friends. Through a perfect and pure sacrificial love, we are redeemed. And then we know with full certainty that there is nothing, not the powers of Megatron or Skyscreamer, no power in the sky above or the crystalline, energy depleted Cybertron below, indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The way of nature? Of getting what is coming to you or your enemy? Of reaping what you think are the just rewards in a zero sum game? Or the way of grace? The way that follows the sacrificial lead of Christ Jesus, who was perfect and pure, and at the right time, died for us all, so that we might live.
Best movie of 2024 so far? Surprising, but yes.
9/10
This post was edited on 9/18/24 at 9:32 pm
Posted on 9/14/24 at 9:02 pm to TulaneLSU
Well I'm adding Transformers One to my watchlist now.
Posted on 9/18/24 at 9:31 pm to ThoseGuys
Friend,
I hope you were able to join Mother and me in the theaters tonight for The Transformers fan movie event. We were both able to secure Optimus posters, key chains, and comic books! The demand for all three of these items was intense. By five before the movie started, all fan paraphernalia was claimed. Compare this response to the posters given out for the Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Haunted Mansion movies, all of which had leftover posters for weeks after their respective special fan events. It looks like The Transformers is going to be a major hit.
I have never done this for any movie review, but upon a second watch, I am upgrading the film to 9/10 and boldly stating that The Transformers One is the best movie of 2024 so far. The story is immersive, revolutionary, and faithful to the original story line. It is better than most Shakespeare plays.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
I hope you were able to join Mother and me in the theaters tonight for The Transformers fan movie event. We were both able to secure Optimus posters, key chains, and comic books! The demand for all three of these items was intense. By five before the movie started, all fan paraphernalia was claimed. Compare this response to the posters given out for the Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Haunted Mansion movies, all of which had leftover posters for weeks after their respective special fan events. It looks like The Transformers is going to be a major hit.
I have never done this for any movie review, but upon a second watch, I am upgrading the film to 9/10 and boldly stating that The Transformers One is the best movie of 2024 so far. The story is immersive, revolutionary, and faithful to the original story line. It is better than most Shakespeare plays.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Posted on 9/27/24 at 10:29 pm to TulaneLSU
Megalopolis
When a tempest brews in the Gulf, I am drawn to tending the garden. Yesterday, after Mother feared the westward warnings of the NHC, she sent me out like an apostle to the family beach home east of Destin. Alone at the house, I found myself immersed in a patch of loden ravel. Years ago, Mother had the not-so-bright idea to plant several nursery cups worth of Asiatic jasmine to cover a small corner of the yard.
If you have ever dealt with this plant, you know that it spreads its tentacles in every direction becoming as intractable as a strand of 25,000 bunched up imported Italian twinkle lights. Mother fired her yard service last year after she found out they were skipping weeks we were not there even though she paid for those weeks. The end result was a full day of work for me yesterday.
All that work was reason enough to go to a movie and Megalopolis seemed like an interesting way to spend a couple of hours. It stars the usually excellent Adam Driver. It is set in New York. And the acclaimed 85 year old Francis Ford Coppola was back in the driver’s seat for what probably will be the last time.
It should be the last time at least. After an intriguing beginning, where we are introduced to time pausing and a mysterious substance called megalon, the story goes off the rails. Though not as confused as the plot, the acting is shaky. Shia probably gives the best performance, but it is anything but award winning. Driver is predestined to fail with a character whose mind is so bicameral, stuck in both hope and delusion, that we wonder, Does he have schizophrenia? Aubrey Plaza is, as always, stuck in her obnoxious sarcastic pose. She should not be given another role in Hollywood. Jon Voigt is incoherent. Dustin Hoffman, well, if he was not such a familiar face, I would not have noticed he was in the film. I could not tell you what his role was.
An accomplished cast, a legendary director, and a large budget seem like a winning combination. However, we get a moralizing attempt at a Roman tragedy that makes the moralizing in right Christian movies seem discrete. We also get a disjointed tangled mess of a plot that makes a snarled plot of Asiatic jasmine appear organized. There is a very valid reason that Lionsgate made Coppola belly up the entirety of this mess’s advertising budget. 2/10
When a tempest brews in the Gulf, I am drawn to tending the garden. Yesterday, after Mother feared the westward warnings of the NHC, she sent me out like an apostle to the family beach home east of Destin. Alone at the house, I found myself immersed in a patch of loden ravel. Years ago, Mother had the not-so-bright idea to plant several nursery cups worth of Asiatic jasmine to cover a small corner of the yard.
If you have ever dealt with this plant, you know that it spreads its tentacles in every direction becoming as intractable as a strand of 25,000 bunched up imported Italian twinkle lights. Mother fired her yard service last year after she found out they were skipping weeks we were not there even though she paid for those weeks. The end result was a full day of work for me yesterday.
All that work was reason enough to go to a movie and Megalopolis seemed like an interesting way to spend a couple of hours. It stars the usually excellent Adam Driver. It is set in New York. And the acclaimed 85 year old Francis Ford Coppola was back in the driver’s seat for what probably will be the last time.
It should be the last time at least. After an intriguing beginning, where we are introduced to time pausing and a mysterious substance called megalon, the story goes off the rails. Though not as confused as the plot, the acting is shaky. Shia probably gives the best performance, but it is anything but award winning. Driver is predestined to fail with a character whose mind is so bicameral, stuck in both hope and delusion, that we wonder, Does he have schizophrenia? Aubrey Plaza is, as always, stuck in her obnoxious sarcastic pose. She should not be given another role in Hollywood. Jon Voigt is incoherent. Dustin Hoffman, well, if he was not such a familiar face, I would not have noticed he was in the film. I could not tell you what his role was.
An accomplished cast, a legendary director, and a large budget seem like a winning combination. However, we get a moralizing attempt at a Roman tragedy that makes the moralizing in right Christian movies seem discrete. We also get a disjointed tangled mess of a plot that makes a snarled plot of Asiatic jasmine appear organized. There is a very valid reason that Lionsgate made Coppola belly up the entirety of this mess’s advertising budget. 2/10
Posted on 9/27/24 at 10:58 pm to TulaneLSU
Why did you reserve posts on the first page of the thread if you didn't intend to use them?
Posted on 9/27/24 at 11:07 pm to imjustafatkid
Mother told him to.
Posted on 9/27/24 at 11:09 pm to TulaneLSU
Reserved
Posted on 9/27/24 at 11:56 pm to SoFla Tideroller
Posted on 9/29/24 at 8:24 pm to TulaneLSU
The Substance
In the beginning of the world, God saw that the first man, Adam, was alone, so God took a rib from Adam and then closed up the wound with flesh. And then God made a woman, Eve, from the rib. In a twisted, upside way, Apollyon wanders through The Substance, stirring the frailty of a singular woman, luring her with the shiny hook of fleeting beauty and acceptance from others, leading her to degrade herself. This degradation causes her to give birth from her own self to a new self, born in a sin so destructive that osteoarthritic knees unable to bend are just the beginning. The wages of such sin is death, gruesome, bloody, and worse among all else, alone and forgotten.
While we could deliberate on the cost of vanity and superficial appearances and celebrity, as that is certainly an obvious theme in the film, I think there is a more intriguing theme: that of humanity’s inalienable ability to find fault in and hate the other, even when the other is the self.
Kafka, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche all write at length about humanity’s self hatred.But no one was better and more insightful than Kierkegaard who writes in The Sickness Unto Death that we are all in a state of despair when we live outside of the spiritual realm. For Kierkegaard, there are three realms: the pleasurable, the moral, and the religious. Most live in the first realm, where our passions and appetites direct our decisions. It is also where animals live. The second realm is the moral – this is when we do good because law tells us to do so. The third is the religious, where we live in freedom in the love of God. Those who live in the first two realms, apart from God, suffer from despair, which leads to self hatred.
Elisabeth Sparkle, Demi Moore’s character, is directed by the appetites of the most base realm and suffers from a despair that is common in our world. Rather than turn to God, who gives the love and acceptance she so desperately seeks, she turns to bilious serum to give her new life. However, the new life suffers from the same passions and hits the same stumbling block as her former self. This new life, which is new only on the surface, despairs because it sees acceptance and desire from others who suffer from despair as the telos of humanity. But as we all know, and as the great catechism teaches, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” If only Elisabeth, whose name means “God’s promise” fell to her knees in humility, then she would see that the sparkle in her life is not a function of age and appearance but of God’s choosing her as God’s own child, who sparkles like a star in the sky, loved wholly and truly by her Father in heaven.
You will need nudity glasses to watch this film, so be sure to either bring them or cover your eyes during the gratuitous nudity scenes. Moore, who looks at the end surprisingly like Dan Akroyd in Nothing But Trouble gives the best performance of her average career. One wonders if the film is her own biopic. Overall, it is a fascinating study on despair and worthy of your time. 7/10
In the beginning of the world, God saw that the first man, Adam, was alone, so God took a rib from Adam and then closed up the wound with flesh. And then God made a woman, Eve, from the rib. In a twisted, upside way, Apollyon wanders through The Substance, stirring the frailty of a singular woman, luring her with the shiny hook of fleeting beauty and acceptance from others, leading her to degrade herself. This degradation causes her to give birth from her own self to a new self, born in a sin so destructive that osteoarthritic knees unable to bend are just the beginning. The wages of such sin is death, gruesome, bloody, and worse among all else, alone and forgotten.
While we could deliberate on the cost of vanity and superficial appearances and celebrity, as that is certainly an obvious theme in the film, I think there is a more intriguing theme: that of humanity’s inalienable ability to find fault in and hate the other, even when the other is the self.
Kafka, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche all write at length about humanity’s self hatred.But no one was better and more insightful than Kierkegaard who writes in The Sickness Unto Death that we are all in a state of despair when we live outside of the spiritual realm. For Kierkegaard, there are three realms: the pleasurable, the moral, and the religious. Most live in the first realm, where our passions and appetites direct our decisions. It is also where animals live. The second realm is the moral – this is when we do good because law tells us to do so. The third is the religious, where we live in freedom in the love of God. Those who live in the first two realms, apart from God, suffer from despair, which leads to self hatred.
Elisabeth Sparkle, Demi Moore’s character, is directed by the appetites of the most base realm and suffers from a despair that is common in our world. Rather than turn to God, who gives the love and acceptance she so desperately seeks, she turns to bilious serum to give her new life. However, the new life suffers from the same passions and hits the same stumbling block as her former self. This new life, which is new only on the surface, despairs because it sees acceptance and desire from others who suffer from despair as the telos of humanity. But as we all know, and as the great catechism teaches, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” If only Elisabeth, whose name means “God’s promise” fell to her knees in humility, then she would see that the sparkle in her life is not a function of age and appearance but of God’s choosing her as God’s own child, who sparkles like a star in the sky, loved wholly and truly by her Father in heaven.
You will need nudity glasses to watch this film, so be sure to either bring them or cover your eyes during the gratuitous nudity scenes. Moore, who looks at the end surprisingly like Dan Akroyd in Nothing But Trouble gives the best performance of her average career. One wonders if the film is her own biopic. Overall, it is a fascinating study on despair and worthy of your time. 7/10
Posted on 9/29/24 at 8:26 pm to TulaneLSU
Reserved
Posted on 10/3/24 at 5:28 pm to TulaneLSU
Monster Summer
Teenagers today are, like the elderly a generation ago, the forgotten generation. There is little art made in the present for them. While I do not want this review to be a dirge to a former time, one thing that has not escaped me during my 94th trip to the motion picture theater this year is the lack of movies made for teenagers, especially males. On the one hand, there are the jejune comic book movies, like the Deadpoll movie that Mother and I left after it berated us for 15 minutes, that are abhorrent, filled with vileness that fills the viewer with sordes, targeted at twenty-something poltroons. On the other hand, there are the cartoon movies, many of which are good, aimed at children.
Monster Summer is a zephyr for teens, not because it is particularly good but because it walks that interval. Will teens put away their phones and 30 second videos to soak in an imaginative story for them? I hope so.
This horror film is a refreshing reprieve from the tendency of contemporary horror movies to drift into the demonic, like Never Let Go, 3/10, or the lurid, like the utterly predictable Speak No Evil 2/10. Finally, Hollywood gives us a movie about teenage friends who go on an adventure. There are not enough adventures on the silver screen and I will have Uncle petition his friends in Hollywood to make more neighborhood adventure movies.
Mel Gibson, who succumbed to the snares of alcohol in 2006 and nearly had both his personal and professional lives destroyed, gives us his best performance since Signs. Lest we fail to recognize 17 year old Mason Thames, who is a rising star that I expect will become a household name in the next five years. Kevin James and Lorraine Bracco are both remarkably bad, and neither role serves a purpose in the film.
There is enough in the film to keep you on the edge of your seat. But there is also not enough Mephistophelean material to scar viewers. The twist is not as serpentine as you may expect and the film does not close all ends, but it is still a decent Halloween journey reminiscent of 1987's Monster Squad. 6/10
Teenagers today are, like the elderly a generation ago, the forgotten generation. There is little art made in the present for them. While I do not want this review to be a dirge to a former time, one thing that has not escaped me during my 94th trip to the motion picture theater this year is the lack of movies made for teenagers, especially males. On the one hand, there are the jejune comic book movies, like the Deadpoll movie that Mother and I left after it berated us for 15 minutes, that are abhorrent, filled with vileness that fills the viewer with sordes, targeted at twenty-something poltroons. On the other hand, there are the cartoon movies, many of which are good, aimed at children.
Monster Summer is a zephyr for teens, not because it is particularly good but because it walks that interval. Will teens put away their phones and 30 second videos to soak in an imaginative story for them? I hope so.
This horror film is a refreshing reprieve from the tendency of contemporary horror movies to drift into the demonic, like Never Let Go, 3/10, or the lurid, like the utterly predictable Speak No Evil 2/10. Finally, Hollywood gives us a movie about teenage friends who go on an adventure. There are not enough adventures on the silver screen and I will have Uncle petition his friends in Hollywood to make more neighborhood adventure movies.
Mel Gibson, who succumbed to the snares of alcohol in 2006 and nearly had both his personal and professional lives destroyed, gives us his best performance since Signs. Lest we fail to recognize 17 year old Mason Thames, who is a rising star that I expect will become a household name in the next five years. Kevin James and Lorraine Bracco are both remarkably bad, and neither role serves a purpose in the film.
There is enough in the film to keep you on the edge of your seat. But there is also not enough Mephistophelean material to scar viewers. The twist is not as serpentine as you may expect and the film does not close all ends, but it is still a decent Halloween journey reminiscent of 1987's Monster Squad. 6/10
This post was edited on 10/3/24 at 5:35 pm
Posted on 10/3/24 at 6:19 pm to TulaneLSU
Posted on 10/3/24 at 7:01 pm to TulaneLSU
quote:
a snarled plot of Asiatic jasmine
Oh Asiatic jasmine, will you ever get yourself together? Sigh...
Posted on 10/3/24 at 9:08 pm to imjustafatkid
He’s a tard. It’s tough tbh. Mom and dad probably helped him with the reviews as well.
Posted on 10/4/24 at 6:55 am to TulaneLSU
quote:I was told the first half is great, but the second half is an unmitigated disaster
Megalopolis
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