Nerd Pride Radio

Use this thread for movies you enjoyed and are recommending.

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020). Available on Amazon Prime Okay. How did no one ever recommend this movie to us?!?!?! I'll give you the premise- a guy discovers that the camera and monitor in his bedroom sees two minutes into the future to a camera and monitor that he keeps in his restaurant down stairs. I'm not going to explain more, because I just want you to watch the trailer and then you'll realize you want to watch this. YOU WANT TO WATCH THIS! It's shot as a "one shot" (but obviously there are clever cuts) and it only runs 70 minutes. But it's so smart and so clever and SO FUNNY! Enough. ENOUGH. Go watch this. I promise, promise, promise you won't regret it.

Knock at the Cabin (2023), streaming on Peacock- I understand this movie to be very divisive, but I loved it. The premise is that a gay couple is on vacation in a remote cabin with their young adopted daughter. Out of nowhere, a group of four strangers approach, tie them up and explain that they've seen a vision of the end of the world and the only way to prevent it is if they can convince the couple to choose of them (either of the couple or their daughter) to sacrifice. If they refuse to choose, the world will end. Bad things happen. Throughout the movie you're wondering if these people are just crazies or if they're legit. I read this book (on the recommendation of Mime, of all people- the book was called The Cabin at the End of the World) and I LOVED it. There are significant differences between the book and the movie, but the building, cruel dread was the same in both. M Night Shyamalan adapted and directed this and it reminds me of what a good director he is. Do I have a problem with many of his scripts? Absolutely. But the way he frames his shots and shoots his movies is masterful- everything is purposeful. Anyways, I very much enjoyed it.

Decision to Leave (2023)- streaming on Prime- There's a handful of directors who I've committed to watching everything they've made. One is Tarantino (seen all of them). Another is Denis Villenueve (seen everything but a couple of his French-language films which are hard to find). And also Park Chan-wook. I've seen all his stuff that's available to stream, and I've loved all it. You know him as the South Korean writer/director of Oldboy, but everything he makes is a masterwork, including his limited series Little Drummer Girl (starring a then unknown Florence Pugh). Decision to Leave is his most recent movie and it's another examination of people who resist and give in to their obsessions and then watch their lives be destroyed by those same obsessions. Even though this is a common theme in his works, it never gets stale or formulaic. This film centers on a detective who's obsessed with a murder he could never solve and a witness who's obsessed with.... That's enough. Just watch the movie. The way he builds dread and passion together through the movie is so great. Loved this movie.

Memories of Murder (2003), streaming rental- Bong Joon Ho is best known as the award winning writer/director of Parasite, and for The Host. And for Snowpiercer. And for Okja. He's brilliant. And I'd heard that this movie was his magnum opus- made almost a decade before Parasite. It's one of those movies that I've always meant to watch, but thought, "Eh. It won't live up to the hype." I was wrong. This is my favorite of all his movies. It's a murder mystery that focuses on a group of detectives using different tactics to find and arrest a serial rapist/murderer. The movie is vicious and unblinking, but also still has that air in Bong Joon Ho's movies where there are lighter moments (some funny moments) which ground it more in the real world. When you read a synopsis, it doesn't sound like there's anything special in the movie, but it's so amazing and haunting.

The Woman King

Finally found time to watch this. Started shaky but quickly lived up to my expectations. If you like action films with top-notch acting, check it out. Voila Davis action superstar at 56, damn. Ending might not be historically accurate, but it's not like Shakespeare never used the past to tell moralistic fictionalized stories.

Nobody
On random movie night, we rolled up Nobody, a 2021 film starring Bob Odenkirk. We checked with Roku which said it was a rental from the usual services OR... we could watch it for free with ads on a channel called Free. Okay, so we watched...

Nobody (2007)
We had no idea we were in the wrong movie until we were about 20 minutes in and still no Bob Odenkirk. But it was just interesting enough to keep us both going. A surreal gangster noir mystery thriller. SPOILER: the mystery is some involuntary time travel, and a story told non-sequentially as it starts in the middle and then builds the tale out in both directions.

It's clever. I enjoyed it. But I also suspect that the time stuff is complete bullshit and if I start picking at it, it will all unravel into the pile of nonsense it really is. It's not a great movie, but it got me.

But then the next night we rented...

Nobody (2021)
There it is! This is what we signed up for! I will give you the basics and you will know if the movie is for you:

Someone said, "I don't know, what if John Wick had more gritty violence and less grounding in reality?" Wait, what do you mean by less grounding in reality? "You know. Like what if he was Bob Odenkirk?" Oh, so it's a comedy? "Well no, but now that you say it out loud... Why not! Like throw in some dark humor!... and maybe just a dash of Christopher Lloyd for good measure."

I loved the crap out of this. This movie knows exactly what it is and plays it sooooo well. My wife loved it as much as I did. Which is a shock, because this is the same woman who watched the Matrix with me and when my favorite scene comes on (Neo and Trinity storming the skyscraper lobby), she gets two minutes into it and says "Yeah, we get it. You shoot guns. Move on." The same woman who got almost to the end of John Wick and said to me, "Yeah, if you wanna watch the sequels, you don't have to wait for me." Yet she loved Nobody. High praise.

Fall
Made for just $3 million, this is hands down the scariest movie I've ever watched. It has some bits that defy physics and logic (there's a great one in the trailer below), but it hardly matters, because it's incredibly well crafted. Watch the trailer for a demonstration of the sort of thrill scares that make up the bulk of the film, but the quick summary: Becky, her husband Dan, and her best friend Hunter are mountain climbing and Dan falls to his death. Becky spends a year in drunken grief. Hunter, now a YouTube thrill seeker, convinces Becky that the way to move forward is for the two of them to climb a 2000 foot radio tower without telling anyone where they went. They do. Shit goes wrong. And I'm scared of heights!

The cinematography is excellent. These are some dizzying shots. With my crippling fear of heights, my balls crawled up into my stomach about 2 minutes in, and stayed there on the brink of nausea for 100 minutes more. Holy shit! At the halfway mark there was a particularly harrowing moment, and my wife, who does NOT share my fear suddenly yells, "Oh my God! Hold my hand!" Which I do. And I'm telling you her palm was drenched in sweat (which she didn't know until I pointed it out). This woman laughs at my irrational fears, and certainly has never sweat from her palms in her entire life, and yet there it was. Seriously, it was scary y'all!

If 100 minutes of gut wrenching vertigo doesn't sound like fun, then skip this one. But for me, this was kind of a benchmark. Like when I ate the world's hottest beef jerky and was physically ill, and I realized that I still love spicy food, and I like it hot, but I no longer need to try every heat challenge out there, because I don't enjoy it anymore and have nothing to prove. So Fall was a great movie and makes a great story for me to tell, but I'm going to think twice about subjecting myself to something like that again. It was that intense.

Definitely going to watch Nobody 2021 version.

Finally figured out the Lance Armstrong movie is called The Program (2015). It's not high art or "film" in the sense that I want you to see it because it's a good movie, but I thought it did a good job of showing why his actions were wrong and impacted other people, so in that sense it was a helpful fictionalized drama based on the truth. It has other actors you might enjoy such as Chris O'Dowd and Jesse Plemons. So yes I think you should watch this, but on an evening when you're not seeking anything too demanding and you just want to be confirmed in your piously confident judgment that Armstrong was a deliberate cheater and huge jerk. This may be a useful affirmation now that he is marketing himself anew as gender critical: "just asking questions what's wrong with asking questions about why trans people exist and need human rights?" Work that grift baby, completely in character for him.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

This movie won all the awards for everything and starts Michelle Yeoh, so I had to see it. Yes, it was great and you definitely should see it. The plot, script, visuals, characters - everything felt new, exciting, hilarious, and cleverly conceived. Michelle Yeoh was phenomenal and it's clear why she won an Oscar for this performance - I would have enjoyed this if she was the only person onscreen. The rest of the cast was also outstanding, including Ke Huy Quan and others I did not know - Jamie Lee Curtis was completely unrecognizable to me until later, which is testimony to how perfect she was in the role.

That said, the movie as a whole may have won all the awards in part because current movies to which it was compared are not so great. As I get old and curmudgeonly and have so many movies accumulated in the sands of memory, it takes a lot to dazzle or touch all-time-great status. I'm also fussy about movies that involve things like time-travel, parallel worlds, diverging timelines, etc - I have to press a big "pause" button on evaluation once these disliked elements appear. However, in general I thoroughly enjoyed it. I like movies that manage to combine hilarious comedy with a deeper set of themes and ideas, and this one fits the bill. The surface-level story is amusing and includes a lot of highly stylized combat that emphasizes the unexpected and clever, as opposed to the violence. So people are fighting but the scenes are nothing like other "fight scenes" you're used to - they include a lot of slow-motion to emphasize comedic and absurd elements, which i liked. The deeper layers of the story are also woven through in an interesting way.

If you can see this movie in a theatre, or in the home of some friend with a tricked out 6000 inch television and home theatre sound system, you should. I would have liked it better if I had been in the theatre to be immersed in all the sound and huge visuals - heck, I would have liked it better if I had been able to find my glasses. Would definitely re-watch this on a larger screen if I get the chance.

Phoebe wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2023 4:46 pm Everything Everywhere All at Once

Stunningly well done. We both loved this film. Michelle Yeoh is a treasure.

The Banshees of Inisherin

You definitely should watch this but should not look up or read anything about this movie whatsoever that might give you a spoiler. Need to watch it cold. I will not give you any spoilers below. The only thing I'm spoiling is that it has outstanding scenery and animals, which for me makes it a win already, but the story is even better. It occasionally offers a particularly superlative old woman of a kind I aspire to be someday if I live that long. It's a movie about a pair of friends, let's say, who are now having a little struggle with their friendship. In the process of understanding this struggle we really confront some things about what it means to be human, what it means to relate to other people, what it is we want out of life or are supposed to want or think we want, the nature of happiness, the nature of conflict and struggle, the absurdity of life, the sad, the lonely, the good and the bad and the ugly, the nice and the not so nice.

The movie stars Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, both of whom are excellent in their roles. The guy who wrote and directed this movie turns out to be the boyfriend of Phoebe* Waller Bridge, which is a somewhat awkward discovery since she's also my girlfriend. If I were going to have a girlfriend, it would be her. Tragically, I am not adequately inspired in that direction but if I were, she's the one for me. I feel somewhat reassured that she is dating a person who would come up with and create this movie.

The movie is disturbing. It's not for children. However, there are so many nice things about it and the scenery is so beautiful. The animals are so beautiful. I imagine the contrast between all this beauty and the human struggle confronted in the story is part of the point. I can't claim to understand the point, but it certainly had an impact on me to watch it and think about it. Jury is still out on what to think about it. At the same time the main characters seem incomprehensible yet completely sympathetic. You understand these people and yet totally fail to understand them. Granted it's fiction, but I felt like I was given a new window on the human. Presumably that's one of the important things movies are for.

* The similarity between names here is completely coincidental. These coincidences can be suspect but such is the surprising nature of life.

I adore that movie. The acting in it is a masterclass. It's easy to forget how good of an actor Colin Farrell is because of some of the big, dumb movies he makes- but he's really one of my favorites right now.

The movie is all a metaphor for the absurdity and destruction of the Irish Civil War, but even without that, it's still just a compelling examination of humanity. Such a good movie.

Get Out

I am not normally a fan of the scary or horror genre. The movies are not usually scary. This movie scared the absolute bejeezus out of me for real, and it was also clever and artfully done. Most of you have probably seen it but in case there are people who haven't I don't want to give any spoilers. I almost could not watch the ending because it was so scary and on many levels - like you just don't know if people are going to make it or ever going to be safe, and I could never have predicted all the different plot twist that happened in the last 30 minutes or so. Usually you see this and that coming but I saw none of it coming (maybe because I don't normally watch movies in the genre) and was completely shocked and horrified! There was a little element of humor here and there despite all this, and I appreciated the moments of levity, but genuinely that was scary as hell!

Trick 'r Treat

The ultimate Halloween anthology movie. I bought it on Amazon and we watch it every year. Several stories, all loosely intertwined. Child murder, in a funny way. The most despicable principal you've ever met. Anna Paquin after her Oscar nomination, but before she was taken seriously as an actor, but before she ruined that credibility by playing in True Blood and as Rogue in the X-men movies. A child serial killer with a pumpkin for a head. This movie has it all! The best Halloween anthology movie. The best Halloween movie. The best horror anthology movie. We're watching it again tonight with the whole family!