Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[Martin]

Where the Crawdads Sing isn't playing near here. Figures.

Sorry to hear that. There is a very good chance I will go see it again before it leaves the theater.

[Tommy]

Where the Crawdads Sing isn't playing near here. Figures.

[Tommy]

And I get that every director is not going to be for every person. That's just life! Peele does get more ambitious with each project and I like the idea that his films can be seen as "Popcorn movies" but also as almost arthouse films with deep underlying sociopolitical messages.

Men was a film I liked earlier this year but it was no Popcorn Movie. It was straight metaphor storytelling throughout the whole thing. Made it more intense and it's not a film you have fun watching, you gotta think.

Peele's films, to me, can be taken both ways and I always admire a layered (especially horror) film.

And again, not saying that anyone that doesn't like his work isn't thinking hard enough or something insulting like that, far from it. I am at the point where I see patterns that aren't there sometimes from having seen so many films in my life. I immediately start analyzing on a second watch if I like the film. At one point I wanted to be a film critic but you see how terrible I am at it, HA!

Just another ramblin' stranger on the interwebs....

[Martin]

Thanks Martin and fair enough. I am not sure if I was trying to convince anyone about the movie's overall "goodness". I was sharing my thoughts after a second analytic look at the movie. I hope I didn't offend. I respect you way too much to try and strong arm you into liking a film. You are the nicest person I've met through various forums and I consider it an honor that you speak to me at all.

I certainly took no offense. I read it as you providing your thoughts on a movie you really enjoyed. In retrospect I see several of the points you make, which was interesting.

[Tommy]

Thanks Martin and fair enough. I am not sure if I was trying to convince anyone about the movie's overall "goodness". I was sharing my thoughts after a second analytic look at the movie. I hope I didn't offend. I respect you way too much to try and strong arm you into liking a film. You are the nicest person I've met through various forums and I consider it an honor that you speak to me at all.

[Martin]

Tommy. I thoroughly enjoyed and see the points in your analysis of NOPE. I would have enjoyed those things if I had been able to watch without checking my watch every few minutes to see how soon I would be released. A second watch will not help me as I am unwilling to try. I have yet to see Maverick but may try it soon. At the moment Where the Crawdads sing is calling me back for a second watch,

[Tommy]

I saw it again this weekend because we couldn't decide what to see. I want to see Maverick but he wanted to see the dinosaur movie again for the sixth time so we saw NOPE (Not Of Planet Earth) again. I enjoyed it more the second watch. The Word spectacle is the key to that film.

Spoiler!

The real villain is the little boy who witnessed the Gordy incident but didn't learn from it. He reveled in it and did the same thing to the life form essentially. You cannot train a wild animal. Siegfried and Roy were mentioned, also numerous shots reminded me of The Birds by Hitch. One over head shot with the creature coming to the gathering is like the overhead shot of the birds descending upon the town. Spectacle, Oprah moment they mention, Oprah interviewed a woman who had her faced ripped off by her neighbor's pet chimp. That episode of Oprah is still the craziest thing I've seen in daytime TV. She now wears a veil much like the disfigured woman in the film. TMZ, nuff said. Gordy, the name, might suggest the straight to video knock off of Babe. Another example of animals being exploited for entertainment. The flags that get hung in the creature's whatever reminds me of the flags we see towards the end of Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, again spectacle (exploitation of animals). The RUN OJ RUN line comes from the biggest spectacle of last century really. The OJ Simpson trial. One shot with Emerald in shadow looking out of the window reminded me of Norma Bates standing by her window in Psycho. That was the first gigantic spectacle due to it's marketing and a film that changed the world. The world of show business, again spectacle with nods to other alien sci-fi flicks of old like the mantis on the lens as a shout out to The Deadly Mantis. Even the ending where Emerald is trying to get the pics, almost makes me think of James Stewart taking flash pictures of Raymond Burr at the end of Rear Window. The first two things we see, after the Gordy clip, are the insides of the alien and it fades into the black man on a horse footage and the final shots we see are OJ on the horse and the shot of the alien Emerald managed to get, some nice symmetry there.

Of course this is all supposition on my part but that is what I see and I did feel like a second watch helped tremendously.

[Martin]

Understood. The pacing is possibly a result of it being edited down from a much longer cut.

That is possible but based on the two movies I have seen from him I suspect it is a stylistic choice.

[Tommy]

Just to clarify. I do not think it ran too long. I think the pacing in the show was too slow. I had the same issue with Get Out. I think the pacing is done by choice; it just does not work for me.

Understood. The pacing is possibly a result of it being edited down from a much longer cut.

[Martin]

I've liked all his films but do see struggles in them. He hasn't exactly nailed the masterpiece yet but I think it's him. Also, funny that a lot of people think it ran too long when Peele said the original cut was actually three hours and forty-five minutes. That's a big edit!

Just to clarify. I do not think it ran too long. I think the pacing in the show was too slow. I had the same issue with Get Out. I think the pacing is done by choice; it just does not work for me.

[Tommy]

I've liked all his films but do see struggles in them. He hasn't exactly nailed the masterpiece yet but I think it's him. Also, funny that a lot of people think it ran too long when Peele said the original cut was actually three hours and forty-five minutes. That's a big edit!

[Martin]

I watched Nope last night. My wife loved Get Out and had me watch it. I found that movie rather predictable but my real gripe with it was the pacing. it felt like a 30-minute show in a 2-hour movie. I skipped Us based on my thoughts on his first movie. As I am currently doing the AMC membership and the previews looked interesting, so I went to see Nope. I thought Nope was an original take on the alien movie. I thought the actors were good. Although the movie had some predictable elements they did not get in the way of the story. There were some visual effects done in the later stages of the movie that made no sense to the story as it was being told but hey, I am watching an alien movie so I can set that aside. The issue came from the pacing again. It also feels like a 30-show in a 2-hour movie. I liked Nope better than Get Out but I think Peele's story telling is not my thing.

Side Note: Where The Crawdads Sing is a fantastic movie!

[Sock Monkey]

I'm a little mixed on Peele's films. I think that GET OUT was a solid movie, but I thought US was a mess. I don't get the hype. I think there are a lot more interesting horror directors out there right now including Mike Flanagan and David Bruckner. I plan on seeing NOPE when it's on Blu-ray, but I'm not incredibly excited.

[dannyboy121070]

We saw NOPE over the weekend. I enjoyed it, although it seemed much longer than it needed to be. My wife, who is scared by EVERYTHING, didn't bat an eye during the film, so don't expect big scares. It looked great on the IMAX screen, and Daniel Kaluuya is one of those actors that you just can't take your eyes off of. He's loaded with charisma, and he made the movie.

[Brian861]

Bob's Burgers is something I too am not really into. I only watch the Halloween episodes of that series. Speaking of which, I've read we are getting two Halloween episodes this year of The Simpsons, both supposed to be branded Treehouse of Horror, with one of them being a single story. That single story is a parody of It, which should be cool. I never was into Beavis/Butthead that much either, although I very much enjoyed the Genesis video game based on the cartoon. (For that matter, I also liked the Treehouse of Horror Game Boy Color title.)

Has anyone seen Nope yet? Didn't seem to do well at the box office (at least, I thought it would do much higher, maybe even close to $100 million the first weekend...wow, was I off). Seems like it would be an entertaining film.

Went to see it last night and I was honestly bored. Wife thought it was ok.

I saw that Jaws is going to be released IMAX Labor Day weekend. One of my favorite movies of all time so I'll be checking that out for sure.