I watched the French movie Breathe. Great movie. Another movie about a high school friendship, this time between girls. Really enjoyed this.

Exactly. And I have total faith in this director. Ex-Machina was unexpectedly amazing. I can see very good things coming from him in the future.

Between you, me and the internet though, Robbo, I’m kind of glad they’re not planning on making this a trilogy. I’m sure that was the original intention. Some exec sees best-selling “sci-fi” trilogy with movie rights and buys or pitches for it, and it turns out to be too dark and too weird and too fucked to be profitable. Hah.

Hey sev I watched 50/50. It was good. Sad. Very grounded.

Anna Kendrick was adorbs as usual.

Yeah, it was ok... pretty sad, glad for the not-sad ending.

What’s hilarious to me, if I didn’t say this already, is that the movie is about a 20-something idealistic dude who apparently makes a living wage and enough to afford extensive cancer treatment while living alone, in *Seattle* and working a bottom-tier gig in *public radio.*

Judd Apatow has a great handle on the mindset of the generation his films target (people born between, maybe, 1980 and 2002... which apparently are called “millennials” or something ;) ) but he has a SHIT grasp on the realities of any demographic that isn’t white, urban, educated and lucky as fuck. That show of his, Love, which I think is kind of brilliant, portrays fucking *Los Angeles* of all places as a weirdly affordable place where important things happen to young white people exactly 100% of the time. Not a brown or black face to be seen in the entire two seasons of the show, except for the quippy “wise Black sidekick” who knows he’s a “wise black sidekick” and just tries to be the best possible stereotype he can be (ugh).
Love is a great show, on par with Girls (hey, another Apatow-thing about white artsy types!) but I don’t think it will resonate with anyone who doesn’t fit into that narrow white-urban-upper-class-educated-improbably-successful-humanities-workin’-selfish-brat demographic.

Anyway, yeah... as long as Apatow’s doing stuff about privileged white intellectuals, he’s freaking Woody Allen (who, let’s be honest, does/did pretty much all the exact same things).

That’s a longer reply than you were expecting. Sorry.

This is just one of the many reasons why I think “The Big Sick” is actually the best thing Apatow’s ever been attached to, as it focuses on the realistic culture clash between Pakistani and American cultures. This isn’t because of Apatow (who only produces); it’s because the film is based on real experiences of co-writer and star Kumail Nanjiani. Still, it’s an evolution for a guy with such a limited range to even want to be associated with it, and it should have been given a Best Picture nomination. I don’t think he’s ever going to be involved in a better film than that.

Big Sick... good stuff.

Yeah well I mean suspension of disbelief and all. Overall I really liked the story and acting.

Saw Alien Resurrection while out sick from work. liked it better than I did when I first saw it back in da day.

Also saw The Late Shift, about the Tonight Show battle between Jay Leno ad Letterman.

Watched the Criterion Collection edition of Mulholland Dr., it had been some years, great revisiting it.

I can't explain why, but I really like that flick. Own it actually. Kathy Bates is awesome.

It's not "great cinema" but I think it's an absorbing story.

Hell Comes To Frogtown
Flesh Eating Mothers

I did not realize it was gonna be so entertaining.

I never watched it because, as a huge Letterman nut at the time, I knew Dave hated it so I never gave it a chance. BUt he hated it just because he is highly private and neurotic, not because it was bad. I found it funny, and was surprised they kept the typical profanity fuckbombs that hollywood execs use! Bates was hardcore.

Late Shift was good if I recall. I remember when that first came out on... HBO? Yeah, think so. I liked it.

Oh man, what a movie.

What the hell is it about Lynch that can be so terrifying even when it’s simultaneously stupid? Like the “behind the dummspter” scene. All that bizarre tension builds and builds as the guy approaches the dumpster to check for monsters, and out pops a very ridiculous looking hag, with some slow-mo and a sound effect overdub. It *should* be laughable, but I walk away from that scene feeling like my brain has just been raped.

Of course it’s nothing compared to the last 2 minutes, but anyway.

Goddamn great movie. Possibly Lynch’s best, though I’ve always been a Blue Velvet kind of guy, and I hear Twin Peaks: The Return is really the crowning artistic achievement of his career (haven’t seen that yet, though).

first feedback from Annihilation screening https://www.cinemablend.com/news/230...ple-are-saying

Yes! I never had any doubt.

Still not entirely sure what’s up with theatrical release. I think the release will be limited even in the U.S. It’s not going to hit a Justice League-level screencount, certainly. But I think it’s going to be good.

With that creative team and that cast, it’s aboit as surprising as, well, Blade Runner 2049 being fucking awesome. However, it has the benefit of not being an already established property with a 30-plus-year buildup.

Man, I kinda wish we were “real life” friends so we could see this together. :o

How bout when you or I see it first we cast that shit through Facebook Live? hahahahhahahahhahahha

Alien Covenant sucked so much so did Prometheus....

Covenant was average/good. I liked it but I'm also an idiot Alien Universe obsessive.

That said, Prometheus is f'ing incredible and I feel like maybe you're a Replicant and you just made yourself known to me, Rob.

Oh and I missed the above talk, but I'm so excited about Annihilation it looks awesome.

I am no Replicant. I am a Virgo.

I will re-watch Prometheus and try to pretend that the supposedly intelligent scientists are just deliriuous with space sickness, or maybe they were sent there as incompetents to actually fuck up the mission. I cannot stand science fiction where the characters act so stupid it is a wonder how they survive day to day.

when I watch it again I will return to hurl flaming bile at the fucking shit in these pages.......

hate movies where they show you a machine (a robot c-section doctor! wow!) and then OF COURSE, by the third act of the film someone needs to use the robot c-section machine! so STUPID.

Fuck it, I am NOT watching it again. I am instead going to watch the last two Planet of the Apes films

Prometheus is MAD SUX. Like Star War prequels sux-level

Ok! But no revealing real names to the rest of these ruffians. Or use dummy accounts.

Prometheus was GREAT. It just wasn’t an “Alien” movie. Or, rather, wasn’t “Alieny” enough.

As an epic, intelligent interstellar sci-fi horror flick, it was fucking awesome. I’m pretty sure I like it more than every Alien movie aside from the original.

Certainly makes Avatar look like a goddamn romp through bullshit dumbass fuckland.

Wait so you prefer the c section machine just randomly appear w no explanation Rob?

I hate when movies introduce you to a character and then sure enough someone talks to them omg saw that coming a mile away!

I prefer no stupid contrived plot device that's what I expect from Aliens

if you say so. I thought that scene was pretty awesome.

You’re making a stand against fucking foreshadowing?

Sometimes you take your self-appointed “instigator” role too seriously.

“Man I hate it when something is put into a story to move the plot forward. It totally ruined literally every book, play, movie and television show in the history of the world for me.”

haha exactly. Rob, give us a list of great movies that don't earlier show you the thing that will be used later in the movie as a major plot point.

Godfather
Fifth Element
Les Enfants du Paradis
Aguirre Wrath of God
Goodfellas
Pootie Tang


the list is long fellas. Prometheus SUX. there is no escape from it

so what are the major plot things that happen in those movies that have absolutely NO foreshadowing?

not talking about foreshadowing. Talking about contrived plotting. two different things. Prometheus is full of stupid characters, who are supposed to be highly expert exobiologists and scientists, who follow NO scientific protocol, who touch gooey shit with their bare hands like fucking 6th graders in science class, who fail to take any normal, standard, scientific precautions, and that stupid fucking c-section machine was so fucking DUMB. so fucking DUMB> and the main plot contrivance of that stupid fucking totemic pale white man creating all of humanity? fucking jesus you guys really like that shit? You guys really bought into that fucking unequivocal nonsense? that movie was one big fuck you to anyone with any intelligence, and a giant fuck you to Giger and to any Alien fans and fuck that shit movie. what a stupid fucking retread piece of TRASH.

You guys can watch The English Patient with J. Peterman all you want, I am gonna go hang with Elaine Benes and watch something funny....

ok.

Fuck that movie and fuck you!

That was harsh, sorry. But there’s foreshadowing all over Godfather. In every movie.

What you’re REALLY saying is that you don’t like it when it’s obvious and hamfisteed. Plot devices are part of plots. They’re in every plot.

You think the machine in Prometheus is hamfisted, but it woks. That’s the last thing that should ruin that movie for you.

Pfff.

Dude, he clearly dislikes it when something in a story becomes more important to the story later on.

DUH.

How could anyone not be disgusted by that? Things playing roles in things? Fuck that sellout pansy bullshit!

Funny you mention J. Peterman. That cake he innocuously purchased from Queen Vicotia’s wedding or whatever? Elaine later ate it and got diarrhea.

Plot device. GARBAGE!!!

Hahaha the cake! Good point.

I don't care if Rob hates a movie I like but the reasoning is hilarious.

Also Citizen Kane sucks cuz fuck that sled!

Oh, bingo! Ultimate cinematic plot device.

Citizen Kane is shit. You heard it here first.

New rule: Things can only appear in movies, book, plays, etc. during their moments of peak significance, and otherwise must be removed from the story altogether so that peak significance no longer exists.

We’re learning how to make art the Rob way. This is important.

citizen kane is boring AF and you know it