Continuing the discussion from What movies are you watching (2024)
Anora, Sean Baker.
Maybe the best movie I’ve seen in the past year. About a very hard young Russian-American who’s soft only by calculation and who via a sad, hilarious rollercoaster of a plot finds that she’s not as hard as we thought.
The last act drags on a bit too long, but I found the ending very satisfying.
9/10 for me
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Flew to America so I saw some movies on the plane although I kept falling asleep so these reviews are half baked as a result 
The league of ungentlemanly warfare (guy Richie film)
It was ok, a little hokey and silly but good for an airplane movie. Slept through about 30 minutes of this one but I could still tell what was going on just fine.
A quiet place day 1: perfect for the plane.it really is pretty quiet, put me right to sleep. I only caught pieces of the movie, but yeah it’s certainly quiet
Absolution with Liam Neeson: wow it’s bad. Who wrote this garbage? Some of the worst dialogue in a long time. Just an all around horrible script. I made it maybe 30 minutes and called it quits. Guess some movies are even unwatchable on the plane.
Stunt man Ryan goosling : a silly turn your brain off type of film. Good for the plane
The count of Monte Cristo (2024 french language version): I really enjoyed this take in a classic. Took some liberties and is not at all a faithful adaption but I thought it was a pretty good film overall. The best thing I saw on the plane by far.
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Flew to Taiwan a while back and watched Trap (pretty wild, a little Dexter-ish), Alien Romulus (body horror, it was pretty good anyway and will watch again back in the US).
Started watching True Detective: Night Country, s4 of the HBO series with Jodie Foster. Only got through 1.5 episodes before we landed. Will definitely finish that one up on the return flight. I’m a big sucker for arctic horror.
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It’s good.
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just say COMPLETE UNKNOWN.
bob dylan is before my time really. MOre like for people now in their 70s. but it was a not bad movie.
would i see it again? (my litmus test for if a movie is good or not) and I would say NO
Flow was pretty good. The death scene was cool.
anybody seen Nosferatu?
how about Godzilla minus color?
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Congrats to Flow. I’m so glad a different animated film won that category instead of the usual formulaic Pixar sequel. Pixar hasn’t produced anything that memorable since Coco.
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There were no kids in the audience when we went and I thought the lessons in it would be great for children but my partner thought it might be too upsetting for little ones.
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No spoilers!!! 
BTW, it is being shown in Taichung as part of a film festival. Would be nice if they have a discussion about it.
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I think I was expecting too much, definitely didn’t like it as much as The Witch or The Northman. Maybe it was too much like the FFC Dracula film…
I don’t think it warrants that, but so be it. Definitely see it if you haven’t.
Haven’t seen The Northman but liked The Witch and The Lighthouse was nuts.
I might go just to see it on the big screen but the collective meh makes me think twice. At this point my expectations are low which might help.
Sorry!
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Boring
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Wonder if that’s the point. I remember the first two as pretty dull as well. Yet artful.
The story of Nosferatu is worn out. The trailer looks artful and all, but I’m thinking the only real audience is young people who aren’t overexposed. Pass.
I loved The VVitch, but found Lighthouse overrated. The blatant, overt artiness moved it uncomfortably close to “successful new director is given a budget and chooses to make an inadvertent but artful! comedy” - for me.
I couldn’t finish The Northman, I remember I found it boring for maybe 10 minutes too long. Maybe some day.
I liked Anora a lot but it’s not a Best Picture winner (neither was American Beauty, a similar movie). Baker probably deserves Best Director, though. Anora could easily have become a screwball comedy but Baker had something else in mind. I remember thinking the scene where Garnik and Igor trap Ani in Vanya’s parents’ house in Brooklyn was made for comedy. I laughed out loud a couple times, thanks to Igor, but I think Baker did a great job - a practical, moviemaking job - of not letting Anora get out of hand there given its ending. I suspect Baker had the ending in mind and created the screenplay around it.
Does anybody actually watch the awards show these days? Just saw clips, and it looked as bad as I thought it would be.
Glad you mentioned Anora. It looks like they’re bringing it back to Taiwan but not in my neck of the woods unfortunately. For his other works I thought the Florida Project looked great but lacked something. It felt like Harmony Korine without the Harmony Korine. On the other hand I enjoyed Red Rocket a lot.
I didn’t like the Nosferatu trailer at all. Turned me off big time.
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Is there any language in this? I did one search that told me there’s no spoken dialogue anyway, so I thought it being Latvian (and us in Taiwan) wouldn’t matter. But then I saw other things saying it’s subtitled here in Chinese.