At The Movies

At The Movies: In The Queue

73 Comments

I've been threatening myself to watch a new (to me) movie recently. Each time I've finished my day and sat down though, it's been too late or I just haven't been feeling it. I'll get to it though, I swear.

What's in your queue that you know you want to get to, but just haven't for one reason or another? Bonus points if you can guess which recent, well-received movie I've been psyching myself up to see (not due to the subject matter, just any sort of time commitment).

Also, what else have you been watching?

73 thoughts on “At The Movies: In The Queue”

  1. I've had the Deadwood movie on my DVR since it came out. I probably need to re-watch some of the series to refresh my memory.

    1. Well, no issues with going back to rewatch some episodes but that movie was really bad.

  2. I watched Palm Springs. It was a delightful, fun movie.

    Watching Hannibal with the wife. It's three seasons long and we have two episodes left in the second season. It's great and I'm continuously struck that this aired on broadcast TV.

      1. Me too. I lol’ed multiple times.

        Also, how cool that the soundtrack would have one of Eno’s rockingest tunes, a John Cale cut and a Kate Bush classic. Somebody has good taste.

  4. Greyhound was pretty good. Most complaints were that viewers didn't have enough context to understand the moves that the captain was making. I didn't find myself in that situation.

    Umbrella Academy season 2 was like the first season; it seemed an episode or two too long. I think also if I tried to map out the timeline, I'd find some characters hard pressed to get from where they were to where they got to in the supposed amount of time.

    Project Power was entertaining but depended too much on the standard evil government agency trope.

    Watchmen series did a good job. Also timely topic handled within it.

  5. Watched The Death of Stalin finally. I mean, the comedy couldn't help but write itself. LOL. Enjoyed.

    Jojo Rabbit was also a good one, IMO. Critics seem to think it stopped short of great, but I was entertained.

    Finally finished season two of American Gods. I loved the book, but at times found the show a chore. Guess I'm not really recommending it.

    Oh. Also finally finished The Last Dance. I was a huge NBA fan in the 90s, so, yeah, wonderful.

      1. Taika Waititi must have one hell of an eye for talent because the kid in Hunt for the Wilderpeople was really great too.

    3. The trailer for JoJo Rabbit was a bit misleading in that it cast the movie as a romp. I enjoyed the total picture, and as Ruh notes the kid who plays Yorki killed it.

      1. I just spent 30 minutes trying to find a piece of video art made by a Chinese artist that mashed concert video of Bryan Adams playing Summer of 69 with images from the cultural revolution. Really stunning piece of art.

      1. But how did you feel about the movie?

        (This doesn't really work, but I couldn't resist.)

  6. I watched Peanut Butter Falcon this last weekend. Cute, predictable.

    I have a lot of movies in the queue. Most are serious three hour movies that I just haven't been in the mood to watch.

  7. Went to Vali Hi Drive In on Saturday for Jurassic Park and Jaws, which was pretty much a perfect end to a fantastic summer day.

    Started Ozark, and liking it through 4 episodes.

    1. Those are two of my favorite films, were two of my sister's favorites before she passed (so sentimental favorites too!), and also two that I think of as being among the best made ever. What a perfect double feature.

  8. Continuing with my UK bingeing, I’ve watched all but two episodes of Endeavour: The prequel to Inspector Morse (which I’ve not yet seen.) Excellent police series set in Oxford in the 60’s. Brilliant cast, great cinematography and engaging stories. Young Morse can be kind of a dick, but you got to love a cop that listens to Opera and does crossword puzzles.

    1. "Inspector Morse" was very good. I had no idea they'd done a prequel. I may need to look for that sometime.

  9. We're almost done with Brooklyn 99. I enjoy it, but I think some of the effect has worn off. Maybe it's that the characters haven't seemed to grow all that much? It's really a very slight criticism, because mostly I enjoy the show.

    I'm also almost done with Community. I stopped watching the show after season 4 when it was originally broadcast. This show used to be super funny. One of the funniest things on TV funny. Now... it's sort of just boring and acceptable, and I want to finish it out for the sake of finishing it. Did all of our senses of humor change so much in the past decade? Did we just all grow up and the childish stuff isn't as funny any more? Are we all just craving depth, so all the superficial stuff on this show just doesn't work any more? Are we all repulsed by Joel McHale now? Weren't we repulsed by him the first time too though? Did we just need to be in that moment in time for any of the million counter-culture jokes to land? Have our worries grown more real so now we can't be concerned by the petty stuff of this show? These are the questions I have.

    About Time - A pretty solid flick, that spends a little too much time getting going. It was recommended to me because I like It's A Wonderful Life, and that recommendation makes sense.

    The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker - I'd seen TLJ before, but Philosofette hadn't. I liked it less the second time. The stakes seemed way lower, knowing what was going to go down. It was still way better than TROS. What a disappointment. This whole final trilogy thing was a massive letdown. They clearly had no plan from the start, and why you'd make a trilogy, to wrap up Star Wars without any semblance of a plan... ugh.

    Eurovision - The Will Ferrell/Rachel McAdams comedy. Was pretty funny. I laughed hard a couple times. Recommend.

    In conclusion, Disney is awful.

      2. I stand by my assessment. I'd like to see what not-Disney would have done with it. The fact that they didn't obviously mess something up in this one instance doesn't mitigate their awfulness.

    2. If Disney hadn't chickened out and went where The Last Jedi was leading, The last Star Wars movie could have been really great.

          1. You might be right -- it might have been one of the other SW movies where the head of the Resistance never told her best pilot what the current plan was, and waited until down to the last ship before destroying the First Order vessel with a maneuver that could have been done right from the start. Don't get me started on Mary Sue.

            1. but the latter criticism is a fair one. If she is going to die anyway, why not go full kamikaze as soon as the transports were away?

          2. co-sign with cheaps.

            it's by no means perfect, but it was enjoyable.

            The Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, has all sorts of problems. I enjoyed it in the moment, but as a film, it's deeply flawed. And as a conclusion to the saga, it's dumb.

            1. That's more or less my take. The crazy thing now is that big-budget films/television have such good production values in general that it's almost hard for me to not enjoy the experience on some level while I'm watching. Like I don't think S8 of Game of Thrones was good, and I basically agree with the popular criticisms of that season, but at the same time I still managed to generally enjoy watching it because it was still a spectacle and even though writing is crucially important to having a really great show, I still find myself able to enjoy other aspects of the show in the absence of good writing -- sort of like when Paul Hollywood can appreciate that an overbaked cake may still have good flavors.

              In retrospect, TLJ was the only movie in the sequel trilogy which seemed to even try to do something interesting or meaningful, even if it failed on some levels. TFA was basically a classy send-up of the original trilogy all packaged into one movie, which made it enjoyable but pretty empty. And yeah, TRoS is just all over the place when you actually stop to think about it.

              Spoiler SelectShow

              1. mostly agreed on your spoiler.

                Dude was a whiny brat kid handed the keys to the Galaxy in the original. He grows up in the next two. And then we are expected to believe that he's so morally flawed as a leader that he contemplates murdering his nephew, thus setting the First Order stuff in motion?

                They could have found better ways for him to go into exile than what they did. But I am willing to get past that, because the Yoda stuff was great, and his showdown with Kylo Ren very, very well done.

                1. And then we are expected to believe that he's so morally flawed as a leader that he contemplates murdering his nephew, thus setting the First Order stuff in motion?

                  This is me projecting onto Luke and ret-conning, but intrusive thoughts are a thing.

        2. I actually liked Solo as a cheap thrills western send-up. It's sort of like how a minor league baseball game can be fun even though you know there were three errors more than a decent MLB defense would have committed.

      2. 100%. Rian Johnson should have been give the reigns for all three of them and we'd be looking at a classic trilogy. Ah well, at least Knives Out was really, really good.

        (TRoS killed any desire I might have had to consume any additional SW content.)

        1. I loved The Mandalorian but I've so far not been bothered to watch TRoS. I've seen the first 8, but from everything I've heard about it, I just haven't felt the urge.

          I'll probably tune in, at least a little, to future Star Wars properties, like the Andor Cassian series.

              1. Yes. But I am still annoyed about some of the retconning. Where the hell were the Bothans who died to bring the information to the Rebellion, dammit?!

          3. I saw it in the theater and afterwards I don't think I've ever felt such..... nothing about a movie. It was like, welp, ok, time to go home. It wasn't until the next day that my brain reminded me that it really was trash.

              1. Ugh, don't remind me of the dumbest scenes or the implicit racism with the black characters only being allowed to talk to the other black characters.

    3. Re: About Time. I've seen it like three times and love it so much. It is indeed a bit slow, but the performances, especially Bill Nighy, are so heatwarming.

      Re: Community. I've only seen one episode, and that was this year, and I hear you. Watching any comedy pre-2015 often brings up similar emotions, as jokes feel dated or offensive now. It's kind of gross how many comedies used to rely on sexism for jokes, some in a wholly ignorant way, some in an ironic wink wink way, but I don't enjoy either. There's exceptions, but even the exceptions have issues.

  10. We watched the shit out of Snowdonia 1890. If you were a fan of Frontier House or the other spin offs this one is in that vein and pretty great.

    We also have been on trash binging with things like Indian Matchmaker, Love is Blind, something something island (or ship of fools) as an escape from reality. I don't recommend any of these as anything other than trash tv.

    Power Project just might be the worst movie ever set in New Orleans. Seriously, half way through I turned to Dr. Chop and said, "do you suppose that guy wakes up every morning thanking the heavens he looks like Joseph Gordon-Levitt"? Dr. Chop looked at me and said, "that is JGL". Maybe I'm the problem, or he hasn't aged well. I know this is supposed to be popcorn fluff, and I should treat it as such, but there are so many ridiculously easy to fix plot holes that it makes the suspension of disbelief impossible for this viewer.

    We're anxiously awaiting Lovecraft Country .

    1. We plowed through Indian Matchmaker in a few days. I would have liked a lot more closure on the people introduce.

      If you watch dating/relationship type shows for the trash factor, you may be tempted to watch "Married At First Sight", it's crap-even by the standards of genre.

  12. Still plugging away at BBC's Top 100 Comedies of All Time, but now we're at the point where just about all are really good.

    Borat is still incredibly hilarious. I bet those three racist, misogynistic shitheads from South Carolina found themselves at Charlottesville a few years ago.

    I was amazed at how funny The Awful Truth was. It was like Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm but in the 1930's with Cary Grant as the guy who keeps lying his way through relationships.

    Trouble in Paradise was also pretty enjoyable.

    Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown had some LOL moments (I especially enjoyed the cab driver).

    My Man Godfrey was meh, but I appreciate that it was one of the original "don't judge a book by its cover" movies.

  13. Saw The Old Guard a few weeks ago. Not sure if it was after the last movie post. It's still March, right?

  16. I've been watching High Fidelity on Hulu. It's okay and I noticed it didn't get renewed for a second season. Somewhat faithful to the book and original movie but brought into 2020 (pre-pandemic). Three episodes left which I will watch but not getting a second season won't cause any consternation on my part.

  17. We have been watching Criminal Minds for a while now. I think we just entered season 5. I find the whole "profiling" the suspect process intriguing. There are definitely some disturbing parts to the show, but it has captivated us for a few weeks now.

  18. J & I watched It's Okay to Not Be Okay on Netflix over the last few weeks when I've been up here (burying the lede here maybe!), and it was very, very good. It's not my favorite Korean drama, but it's up there. They managed to make a story about how trauma impacts our lives be really charming and light enough that it isn't a slog to watch. The main cast is good, and I was very sad when it ended.

    We also finished off Watchmen. I'd finished as it aired, J watched the first 5 episodes when she was in Fargo the last time. I still love it so much.

    We watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire again. It's still perfect. This was the last movie we saw in a theater, and if it's truly the last one we see, we went out on a high note.

    1. I saw Watchmen recently and really enjoyed it. I've never read the original source material, which can be an advantage sometimes when watching adaptations, but I thought it managed to be relatively smart but fun at the same time and wrapped up more definitively than you often get with Lindelhof (though I am an unabashed over of The Leftovers.)

      1. Watchmen is easily some of the best television I have ever seen. Great writing, plotting, action, performances. And a more than worthy successor to the source material, which, IMO, is a bit overhyped (but still pretty damn great).

        1. I despised the Zack Snyder Watchmen and read the comic after that. I think it is a bit overhyped, and people extremely do not get a lot of what is being said in it. But it is very much worth a read. I was expecting the worst from the TV show, but was pretty much completely on board by the end of the first episode. It's just really damn good.

          1. I enjoyed the film. It's an interpretation. A lot of it was, IMO, very well done. Again, far from perfect, but entertaining.

            Of course, I was not wedded to the source material. If I were more invested (as, say, with Dune, where I mostly dislike David Lynch's film and much, much prefer the SciFi miniseries, despite the lower production values), I might feel differently.

  19. I watched Ready or Not a couple of nights ago and it was terrific. Samara Weaving is really, really good.

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