Yeah, I know, I know!
I'll try to get around to it this week.

But what if, after all this fuss, I don't even have anything to say about it?

Don't expect too much! Maybe... I won't even like it
https://media.giphy.com/media/8I1y2d...facebook_s.jpg

Oh, you'll have something to say about it.

Fave?

Have you seen Zelig?

Curious about your thoughts on this one.

Super Babies 2>>>

Have you seen Drugstore Cowboy? Not really related to NL or Croenberg but it stars WSB.

Have you seen Hunger?

Alien. Still a very impressive movie. I see it every few years and it never looks anything less than completely fresh and believeable. I'm not sure what my 2nd favorite would be. Either Aliens or Resurrection, the latter of which gets a lot of criticism, but I feel like you just have to appreciate it as a Jeunet movie. I love the look of the film, the strange atmosphere and many of the characters. Ron Pearlman, Dominique Pinon, Brad Dourif, Michael Wincott, Sigourney Weaver... all put in memorable performances. The movie is pretty amazingly casted, in my opinion.

Yeah, I saw it somewhere late last year. Like other pre-Manhattan Allen movies that I've seen, I didn't really like it. It's got a great premise, but the badly aged grandpa humor and farcical style kind of didn't make the most of it. The idea itself is more interesting than what Woody Allen does with it, almost. I think it could have been something really special, but instead, I feel like it lost impact and weight due to being so silly and superficial. I think Woody Allen found a better balance of comedy and drama a bit later in his career.

I think it's a genre bound thriller that often gets taken for being much more than it is. It's got a sprinkling of history, politics and details that lend believability to the movie, but it's a thriller at the end of the day. It's a really good thriller that respects your intelligence and allows the situation in Iran to remain, to the viewer, frustratingly morally and politically gray. It avoids doing the usual "Amurrica, **** yeah!" style of lets-go-fix-things-in-the-Middle-East thing, and instead makes the Argo mission seem like some sort of attempt at making amends for the mess the CIA previously has created in the country. Except of course if you lay it all on one specific line in the movie, where it is suggested that the other party will win the next US election if these hostages end up as corpses...
The angry mobs supporting the Ayatollah, demanding the heads of American hostages are portrayed as dangerous under the circumstances, but the movie has the honesty to admit head on that the US basically indirectly did this to itself.
I think that's the only responsible way to treat still-relevant historical and political topics like this. To be honest about how it's not just the fault of some faceless boogeymen that the movie can arm and have our heroes fight against.
TL;DR= Argo is good because it's a fairly straight forward thriller that dares to avoid simplifying the situation at the time and place where the story plays out. I mean, it's not a documentary, so of course there'll be contrivances and omissions, but... you know.

Hey, at least Entertainment Weekly didn't quite seem to hate it.

No, never even heard of it. Worth a watch?

Yeah, and I didn't really like it. It's got a pretty amazing performance by Fassbender, can't take that away from him, and McQueen knows how to shoot scenes that make your skin crawl. But I never really felt like the movie makes a very good case for why Fassbender's character is so determined to huger strike. The politics and beliefs sort of fade into the background and it becomes a movie more about the slow, physical breakdown of a body. It felt both unpleasant and tedious to watch. I needed more of a reason why I should sit and watch that.

This one checks out, boys.

I can't believe there are people who prefer Aliens.

According to my research:
Manhattan (1979)
Zelig (1983)

I love Zelig because it's not only an interesting look at identity, it's also a very well-made original concept that blends together several different film styles seamlessly. Purple Rose of Cairo is probably my favourite Allen film because I'm a sucker for reflexive humour.

I just feel like it goes into the common pitfall of biopics where it loses sight of being a great piece of art and becoming bland as ****.

Definitely.

I think that either McQueen giving the audience the benefit of the doubt or a move to avoid having the film be less about the politics and more about the human struggle. It's definitely very unpleasant to watch, but I think that's part of what makes it such a great piece of art.

Truth. As a lover of mindless entertainment Aliens is still vastly inferior. Still a lot of fun, but compared to Alien it's like Anthrax trying to step up to Reign in Blood so their girlfriends think they look hard.

It's a good movie and it's aged really well too, but it's also 2½ hours action movie that eventually gets lost in blowing **** up and fighting monsters. It's Starship Troopers without the satire. But still very good for what it is, I think. In terms of big budget 80's action, I think Die Hard is the king.

I've got Zelig categorized in my mind under "old Woody Allen stuff", but I can see that I'm totally wrong here. The humor reminds me of his 1969 movie, Take the Money and Run. That's why I've misremembered the age of the movie. Still haven't seen Purple Rose of Cairo, but of course I want to.

I can see that. It's made in a very straight forward, modern thriller sort of manner. To my eyes, the color grading even has a hint of that teal & orange combo you see in so many big-budget movies. The box art even has the usual red text on black background that signals a "regular" thriller. I guess I just appreciate it for being effective and reasonably intelligently made. It's definitely not great art. Even though it's more Michael Bay-ish and a lot worse reviewed than Argo, I think The Kingdom is a better Americans-in-the-Middle East genre-thriller.

I can appreciate that view, but I really want more from art than just plain misery.

It's not that I want to see abject misery, it's just that art that can elicit strong emotions out of this heartless yob gets major points in my book. Especially so if it's done in a singular way. Moves like Hunger or Irreversible do that very successfully, even if I never want to see them again, especially Irreversible. That movie ruined my week when I saw it.

Starship Troopers >>> Aliens

Didn't much like Irreversible either, but I think I get what you're saying. Both movies elicit empathy, so they're not just destructive.