Which films have you seen lately? Vol. 21: Now in CinemaScope!

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Was Feynman a clown in the movie? ^^

No. It pandered to the "I know one fact about..." types.
And why not. If they feel like they're among the cognoscenti for a second, the writer succeeded in giving them a special moment of joy and satisfaction.

I can't remember if anybody called him by name. (It wasn't the most engaging of movies.) Instead, they showed a guy playing bongo drums a couple of times, usually to one side of whatever was happening. (I wonder if he only started playing until well after the war. Shrug. )
IAC, he was also preoccupied with his dying wife during the Los Alamos work, so it would have been wrong to have him front and centre in the movie for very long.

Artistic licence and Hollywood sanitization.
Oppenheimer was said to have returned suddenly from a trip to Corsica because he was concerned about the apple he injected with cyanide. It was dealt with in a very weak way in the movie.

Also omitted were the episode where he tried to strangle(?) an associate, and his frequent visits to see psychiatrists. But the movie was already quite long.

Maybe they will be dealt with in the sequel: Oppenheimer at Ong's Hat

 

[Kyriakos]

No. It pandered to the "I know one fact about..." types.
And why not. If they feel like they're among the cognoscenti for a second, the writer succeeded in giving them a special moment of joy and satisfaction.

I can't remember if anybody called him by name. (It wasn't the most engaging of movies.) Instead, they showed a guy playing bongo drums a couple of times, usually to one side of whatever was happening. (I wonder if he only started playing until well after the war. Shrug. )
IAC, he was also preoccupied with his dying wife during the Los Alamos work, so it would have been wrong to have him front and centre in the movie for very long.

Artistic licence and Hollywood sanitization.
Oppenheimer was said to have returned suddenly from a trip to Corsica because he was concerned about the apple he injected with cyanide. It was dealt with in a very weak way in the movie.

Also omitted were the episode where he tried to strangle(?) an associate, and his frequent visits to see psychiatrists. But the movie was already quite long.

Maybe they will be dealt with in the sequel: Oppenheimer at Ong's Hat

Iirc he himself wrote that he only started playing the drums in Brazil (or a couple of years before he went there). I expected the lock-picking stories from Los Alamos.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Michael Collins, 1996. FREEEDOO- wait, wrong movie. Liam Neeson plays Mick Collins, a leader in the Irish republican movement who was killed by members of the same who opposed his backing of a treaty with the Crown. I knew nothing of Collins before this and the movie's lack of a narrative kept me more or less confused. My buddy and I watching this had no idea who was attacking whom when the tank started shooting people at a soccer match. I read on Wikipedia that the royal forces thought the fellas shooting collaborators had blended into the crowd at the match, but you don't get that in the movie: it's just "Oh, hello, you're doing sports? I'd like to do a repeat of Amritsar now, thanks."

 

[EgonSpengler]

Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) was okay, if not memorable. I had to Google it just now 'cause I couldn't remember the name, even though I watched it only yesterday.
The first half or so of Bottoms (2023) is my favorite comedy of last year. I think I laughed 3 times just in the first scene. It lost some steam in the second half, for me, but still very good.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Poor Things on Hulu. What a delightful, comedic retelling of reanimation stories. Emma Stone certainly earned her Oscar!

 

[Smellincoffee]

Bad News Bears, 1976. A rewatch. Still fun.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Damn Yankees, 1958. An aging real estate agent who dotes on the Nationals and hates the Yankees is tempted by a mysterious figure with supernatural powers, who offers him youth and amazing baseball talent, enough to see that the Nationals beat the damyanks for the pennant race. Oddly enough this is the second baseball musical I've seen this month. The big dance scene reminded me a lot of the mambo scene in West Side Story: I imagine that's Bob Fosse's influence. Enjoyed it very much, though there were weak points -- especially the musical number about 'urp' and the mambo. The best part of the movie was seeing "Boothby" from Star Trek TNG playing Mr. Applegate/Satan. Based on a novella called The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.

 

[Takhisis]

Michael Collins, 1996. FREEEDOO- wait, wrong movie. Liam Neeson plays Mick Collins, a leader in the Irish republican movement who was killed by members of the same who opposed his backing of a treaty with the Crown. I knew nothing of Collins before this and the movie's lack of a narrative kept me more or less confused. My buddy and I watching this had no idea who was attacking whom when the tank started shooting people at a soccer match. I read on Wikipedia that the royal forces thought the fellas shooting collaborators had blended into the crowd at the match, but you don't get that in the movie: it's just "Oh, hello, you're doing sports? I'd like to do a repeat of Amritsar now, thanks."

Well, you're expected to know who's who and, regarding the second bit, the British Army was notorious for massacring civilians and often not even bothering to provide justifications or apologies. There was the Dekemvriana in Athens (imagine that, get the army in to free Greece from the Nazis and just in case massacre any other undesirables), a long series of underreported massacres in stolen Cyprus, colonial repression in Kenya, the concentration camps in the Boer War, etc.

Regardless of the legal an aristocratic trappings, Ireland was another colony.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Well, you're expected to know who's who and, regarding the second bit, the British Army was notorious for massacring civilians and often not even bothering to provide justifications or apologies. There was the Dekemvriana in Athens (imagine that, get the army in to free Greece from the Nazis and just in case massacre any other undesirables), a long series of underreported massacres in stolen Cyprus, colonial repression in Kenya, the concentration camps in the Boer War, etc.

Regardless of the legal an aristocratic trappings, Ireland was another colony.

Jaysus. I'd heard of the Boer camps, but none of the other stuff.



It Happened in Flatbush, 1942. Years after a critical error caused the Brooklyn Dodgers to lose a game and the pennant, ‘Butterfingers’ McGuire has returned to his team as manager, struggling against residual resentment and distracted by his attractive new boss. It’s very much a movie about the way communities can dote on their teams, especially the intense affection Brooklyn had for the Dodgers before they went chasing silicon dreams in California. Makes me realize that The Lords of Flatbush must've been set in Brooklyn: I never paid attention to that particular name/element before.

 

[Takhisis]

Jaysus. I'd heard of the Boer camps, but none of the other stuff.

Why do you think the British are reviled across half the world?

 

[Smellincoffee]

Mickey, 2004. A lawyer with tax problems skips town with his kid to avoid the IRS locusts. When his kid takes their new town's team to the Little League World series, trouble ensues. There's a great moment when a kid on the team with the nickname of Pudge hits a ball and echoes Carlton Fisk "Old Pudge"'s body language in the '75 world series. Great ball movie, not sure why I haven't see it on any lists.

Why do you think the British are reviled across half the world?

Because driving on the left side is vile.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Mickey, 2004. A lawyer with tax problems skips town with his kid to avoid the IRS locusts. When his kid takes their new town's team to the Little League World series, trouble ensues. There's a great moment when a kid on the team with the nickname of Pudge hits a ball and echoes Carlton Fisk "Old Pudge"'s body language in the '75 world series. Great ball movie, not sure why I haven't see it on any lists.

I've never even heard of that one before. Wikipedia notes that its total box office was under $300,000. I wonder if it was what we used to call "straight-to-video." Wikipedia also says the part of 'Commissioner' was played by John Grisham, the novelist (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, etc).

 

[Smellincoffee]

I've never even heard of that one before. Wikipedia notes that its total box office was under $300,000. I wonder if it was what we used to call "straight-to-video." Wikipedia also says the part of 'Commissioner' was played by John Grisham, the novelist (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, etc).

I thought he looked familiar, but it's a quick shot. Grisham wrote the screenplay. The movie had at least one actor I knew -- Mike Starr, with a large supporting role as the baseball coach.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Saw Society of the Snow on Netflix over the weekend. Great movie but kind of depressing.

Die Schneegesellschaft (2023) ⭐ 7.8 | Adventure, Biography, Drama

2h 24m | 16

www.imdb.com

 

[Narz]

I saw the Barbie movie a month back, it played on the plane & I tried to watch out of curiosity but I couldn't get thru it.

The characters were all caricatures, I get that was the idea but to be invested in a movie you have to care & I just didn't, I got about halfway thru.

I couldn't help thinking that it was pretty embarrassing for 1st world women to be portrayed in this way (living in luxury & yet complaining about a patriarchal culture), I kept imagining some 3rd world woman in an actual patriarchal culture who gets beat by her husband and has seven kids hearing the message that men are horrible cause they try to explain their favorite movies & like it when you fetch them beer & it's so hard trying to look pretty all the time.

I'd be embarrassed to pay for one of these capitalistic movies that try to make fun of themselves while making a **** ton of money, fortunately it was free

 

[BenitoChavez]

American Fiction - It's not a full-on comedy but I laughed more than I have during a movie in a long time. Of the Oscar nominated movies for best picture last year that I've seen, this is my favorite one.

 

[Fippy]

I'd be embarrassed to pay for one of these capitalistic movies that try to make fun of themselves while making a **** ton of money, fortunately it was free

Quality / actually making something good isn't really important anymore these days.
Buy the newest phone, have 5 streaming subs, always buy at Amazon, use google, tolerate ads and slowly but steady you will also not care anymore

 

[Smellincoffee]

The Rookie, 2002. Dennis Quaid threw his shoulder out in the minors, but after challenging his high school baseball club to do better and pursue their dreams, they tell him to do the same. He takes them up on their offer and finds himself starting off for the Devil Rays at an age when most players are thinking about retiring. High school ball transitions to major league ball; father-son story on multiple levels; heart warming to the mostest. As Red Sox fans say, "So good! So good! So good!".

"Brooks, you know what we get to do today? We get to play baseball!"

 

[EgonSpengler]

TIL that Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are married. Go, them.

---

The Rookie, 2002. Dennis Quaid threw his shoulder out in the minors, but after challenging his high school baseball club to do better and pursue their dreams, they tell him to do the same. He takes them up on their offer and finds himself starting off for the Devil Rays at an age when most players are thinking about retiring. High school ball transitions to major league ball; father-son story on multiple levels; heart warming to the mostest. As Red Sox fans say, "So good! So good! So good!".

I love the scene where the kids talk him into unleashing one of his legit fastballs and they're all like WTF. One of my sports fantasies when I was a kid was to be able to take an at-bat against a pro pitcher. I don't mean an actual at-bat in a real game, like Moonlight Graham, but just in a 'fantasy camp'-type setting, just to be able to look down the barrel of a Major League gun, so to speak. When I was in high school, a local radio station ran a contest, and the winner would get some kind of sports-themed prize involving a player from one of the local teams. So, for example, you could play Horse with a Celtics player, or skate with a Bruin. If I had won, I'd have asked for a "real" at-bat against Roger Clemens. And no [kitten] 75-mph pitches for civilians, either; I wanted them to put Gedman behind the plate with his mask on and show me the real cheese, just to see if I could even make contact (prolly not).

 

[Fippy]

The Woman in Black (2012)
A very good mystery film and def. spooky enuf. Nice foggy atmo.
4/5 Roger Ebert agreed https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-woman-in-black-2012

Sadly i cannot recommend the second film at all.