The Unofficial Ongoing Current Movies in Theaters thread

[dookeyXXX]

The Dead Don’t Hurt
Saw the trailer for this Viggo M Western today.
I do enjoy me some Westerns…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgv25Ni_jv0

[dookeyXXX]

Kill
Also saw the trailer for this Indian jammy (and I also love me some action films on a train…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVyNeDYu9Kk

[PB]

The Dead Don’t Hurt
Saw the trailer for this Viggo M Western today.
I do enjoy me some Westerns…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgv25Ni_jv0

Looks better than Appaloosa.

[dookeyXXX]

If you can double-feature Monkey Man and Boy Kills World, preferably at a drive-in, DO IT!

[Supermoon]

If you can double-feature Monkey Man and Boy Kills World, preferably at a drive-in, DO IT!

Monkey Man was so good! Boy Kills World also looks great.

I think this is going to be a good summer for movies.

[yeahman]

May have missed it but I haven't seen anybody mention Anatomy of a Fall. Not in theaters anymore but streamable. Oscar winner for original screenplay. Sandra Huller is great. As is Antoine Reinartz as prosecutor. I really liked this movie.

https://youtu.be/FUXawkH-ONM?si=jrgiepnVFvx-DG3W

[dookeyXXX]

Monkey Man was so good! Boy Kills World also looks great.

I think this is going to be a good summer for movies.

Boy Kills World is decent. Not as tight as Monkey Man, imho, but still entertaining in an amphetamine cotton candy kind of way.

[Mike Pow]

May have missed it but I haven't seen anybody mention Anatomy of a Fall. Not in theaters anymore but streamable. Oscar winner for original screenplay. Sandra Huller is great. As is Antoine Reinartz as prosecutor. I really liked this movie.

https://youtu.be/FUXawkH-ONM?si=jrgiepnVFvx-DG3W

Agreed.

Been going through the Oscar contenders list and this is streets ahead of the others I've watched.

Worst to best so far

Poor Things
Rubbish. Could only stomach 20 mins. Emma Stone annoying as fuck.

The Holdovers
Couldn't get on with it. Saccharine. Poor Man's Dead Poets. Bailed after 30 mins.

Barbie
Decent but should be nowhere near the Oscars. Ryan Gosling the best thing about it.

American Fiction
Really enjoyed it. Very interesting premise.

Zone of Interest
Beautifully shot. Great sets and scenes. Really well acted.

But once you're presented with the juxtaposition of the blissfully happy, sunny and for the most part care free lives of the Germans versus the unseen (except for the smoke) and terrible lives & deaths of the prisoners there's not much else to say about the film.

Anatomy of a Fall
Excellent. Snoop the dog is a better actor than most in the above.

This film then daylight to the others. The 24-hr above the Arctic Circle Summer type of daylight.

[dookeyXXX]

MARS EXPRESS
This looks tres cool.

Sadly, only the English dubbed version is showing in the theater near me, so I will probably wait until streaming availability to peep the original French version…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ8yYUsqbiM

[PB]

Trailer was little frenetic, but yeah .... I'm in.

[Buzzworthy]

I miss good movies.

[dookeyXXX]

MONKEY MAN
Dev (best known for Slumdog Millionaire) Patel’s debut feature is a pastiche of/homage to the late 1970s Shaw Brothers films, the 1980s output of Golden Harvest, 1980s Hollywood action films, and the John Wick series (the latter is even unsubtlely name dropped in the film). So, what you get is a rousing rock ‘em sock ‘em action film. Patel tosses in bits of social and political commentary about India’s caste system and rampant poverty, not to mention the unjust treatment of hijra people. He also includes a hint of Hindu mythology in the form of Hanuman, the simian deity. Sadly, much of these meditative, philosophical, and sociological aspects of the film are merely hinted at, glossed over as asides rather than core story elements. The result is that they ultimately fail to give the film the extra depth the writer/director obviously intended (though it did get me to do a post-screening deep dive into Indian politics, religion, and transgender equality, so maybe it served its function after all). Additionally, there are a few plot and continuity glitches along the way, involving a stray dog, and the obligatory martial arts training montage.
Yet when it comes to the look and feel of the film, Patel is on lock. There is an opening scene where a rich woman is pickpocketed and it is wonderfully kenetic. Having tabla maestro Zakir Hussein accompany the aforementioned training montage is damn near genius. Plus Patel’s neon saturation never feels forced or faux. And the action scenes are well choreographed and filmed. Additionally, the pacing is lightning quick and the score from Aussie musician Jed Kurzel is bracing and adds the right amount of energetic tension to the proceedings.
In the end Monkey Man jumps on your back, wraps its metaphorical tail around your neck and never lets up for its 121-minute run time.

[dookeyXXX]

CIVIL WAR
Writer/director Alex Garland’s latest effort is one of the most viscerally intense films I’ve seen in years. It comes out the gate with a bang and never really lets up. Garland’s sense of pacing and knowing how to lull the viewer into a tenuously false sense of security, only to shatter it with bouts of rapid fire violence is damn near unparalleled here. His casting choices are pretty damn bueno to boot. This is perhaps the first film where I haven’t been annoyed by Kirsten Dunst; she expertly captures the wearied outlook of a seasoned (and dare I say jaded) war zone photojournalist. But the rest of the core cast— Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeney, and Stephen McKinley Henderson—equally hold their own. But it’s often the supporting players who steal the show; Jesse Plemons delivers one of the most mesmerizingly vile and volatile performances I’ve ever seen.
Garland makes some interesting choices in terms of keeping the politics of the film extremely vague. Having California and Texas forming an alliance to withdraw from the Union felt strange and slightly unrealistic (as a life-long denizen of The Golden State, I found this aspect of the film a bit hard to grasp, but methinks Garland did this on purpose to spark debate). And not knowing what the President’s politics were was also a bit frustrating. It would be all too easy to be dismissive of Garland, saying that because he's a Brit he doesn't know shit about American politics or sociology. Yet based on his novels and previous films he seems to be a smart cookie, so I have to believe it was intentional to keep these elements hazy. Not knowing why everyone is fighting on the surface is a pretty blunt exclamation of “war is stupid,” but underneath it creates a disorienting aura for the viewer and only adds to the tension as you never know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, so to speak.
If I have one qualm about the story it’s that I figured out the ending during the first 10-minutes of the film. Granted, Garland kept the pacing taut and tension sufficiently dialed up, but I do wish he had tweaked the inevitable conclusion just a wee bit. That minor quibble aside, the film had me on the edge of my seat the entire time thanks to wonderfully placed jolts of action and emotion. While rooted in fiction, it may be one of the best films about war ever produced.

[dookeyXXX]

MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE
Guy Ritchie’s WW2 epic purports to be based on a true story, though I’m pretty sure that he’s embellished it just a wee bit. On the surface it will no doubt be unfairly compared to Tarantino’s Inglourious Bastards, but it really owes more to the classic Hollywood ensemble war films like The Great Escape, The Guns of Navaronne, The Dirty Dozen, and Kelly’s Heroes than anything else.
Like those films, Ritchie has assembled a crackerjack ensemble cast, here led by Henry Cavill. I have to admit that I never paid much attention to this British actor, knowing him chiefly as Zack Snyder’s Superman, but he absolutely rules the role of Gus March-Phillips, instilling it with a rakish charm (and the coolest mustache since Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot). The rest of the cast manages to keep up with their charismatic leader: Liza Gonzalez, Alan Richson, Henry Golding, Alex Pettier, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Bass Olusanmokun, Carey Elwes, and Til Schweiger.
While many of the story’s beats will be familiar to anyone who has seen any of the films I name dropped above, Ritchie delivers the proceedings with his usual panache (and no small shortage of blood and carnage). In short, it’s rip roaring and raucous, and teeming with wonderfully snarky dialogue.
As an aside, based on his performance in this film and in Argylle I’d throw my hat in the Henry Cavill for James Bond ring…

[dookeyXXX]

Re: THE FALL GUY

IYKYK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGLnkyL41B0

[Supermoon]

I really liked The Fall Guy. One of my favorite action comedies I’ve seen in the last few years.

[dookeyXXX]

FWIW, I saw the original Metalstorm in the theaters on a double-bill with Risky Business, so the riffs on that film and TC in The Fall Guy were kinda nostalgic.
Ditto for the Miami Vice joke as I was a homebody nerd kid in High School who stayed in on Friday nights to watch Crockett and Tubbs…

[mcski]

FWIW, I saw the original Metalstorm in the theaters on a double-bill with Risky Business, so the riffs on that film and TC in The Fall Guy were kinda nostalgic.
Ditto for the Miami Vice joke as I was a homebody nerd kid in High School who stayed in on Friday nights to watch Crockett and Tubbs…

Don’t feel bad, in college we gathered in our dorms community TV room to watch Crockett and Tubbs on Friday nights. Although for us, that was also part of the pre-gaming ritual before making the party rounds

PS-never heard of metalstorm. Weird

[dookeyXXX]

Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn was a bad 3-D post apocalyptic flick from 1983; it totally ripped off Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.
It is parodied/paid homage to in the new The Fall Guy flick. Universal, who distributed TFG also distributed the original Metalstorm.
Kinda hoping that they actually remake it with a decent budget…

Anyway, my dad took me and my brother to see it because it was in 3-D.
To his credit my pops tried to convince us to see something else as he said that 3-D was kinda lame. But me and my brother had been deluged by the TV spots for the film and had never seen a 3-D film.
I had huge prescription glasses at the time and the 3-D glasses were the flimsy paper ones. They kept falling off and ultimately the only cool 3-D effect was fog that appeared to coat the theater during the end credits. The film was so bad that my dad went out into the lobby and used the pay phone to call my mom to tell her we wouldn’t be home for dinner and were staying for the double-feature. We knew nothing about Risky Business.. My brother was 10 and I was 16 at the time. When the sex scene in the L-train came on my dad was a bit shocked (so were we) and he whispered to us “Don’t you dare tell your mom about this film!”
While my folks were pretty straight-edge in that they never let me go out to parties, after that night they were pretty liberal about taking me to R-rated films; they would either purchase the tickets for me and my friends or they would accompany us and sit in the back.(
The Fall Guy has running jokes about both Metalstorm and Tom Cruise, which reminded me of that long ago double-feature.

[dookeyXXX]

Coupla interesting looking horror films currently in and coming to theaters soon:

I SAW THE TV GLOW
Official Site: https://tickets.isawthetvglow.movie/synopsis/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kymDzCgPwj0




IN A VIOLENT NATURE
Official Site: https://www.inaviolentnature.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyXuRmXbS7U




CUCKOO
Official Site: https://neonrated.com/films/cuckoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuON7HH0UkQ

[TurxSki]

Hometown boy? cool.
Guns, guns, guns? yawn

[yeahman]

Cuckoo looks cool. The other two I'll pass.

Saw Abigail a couple weeks ago. Pretty weak. Casting and acting of the kidnappers was especially awful. The girl vampire was okay but couldn't salvage it.

[dookeyXXX]

Saw Abigail a couple weeks ago. Pretty weak. Casting and acting of the kidnappers was especially awful. The girl vampire was okay but couldn't salvage it.

That was my premonition about that film purely based on the trailer.
I should note that I generally try to avoid films that give away the entire plot in the trailer (the filmmakers were also responsible for Ready or Not, which also gave away the entire film in the trailers! Plus that movie kinda sucked, too, so the creatives behind Abigail already had a shitty track record for me…).

[dookeyXXX]

Full disclosure: I was one of the few who did not like Joker.
But damn, the trailer for the sequel has me intrigued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy8aJw1vYHo

[dookeyXXX]

IN A VIOLENT NATURE
Saw this on Friday.
Still formulating my opinion, but first impressions were meh.
One thing is certain: all the “journalists” opining about it being arthouse horror and redefining the slasher genre have their heads planted firmly up their collective rear orifices.
Honestly, the only way the film works is if you view it as ironic satire.
The problem, however, is that the director is on record (in a TIME interview) saying that it’s not satire…
Also, everyone is gawking about the violence, yet roughly 50% of the kills happen off-screen…there is one veritable money shot kill that is so over-the-top that it made me scream out loud, but one scene like that does not a great slasher make.