Doomsday's Paternity Leave Movie X-travaganza

Logan Lucky
Watched 3/5





I heard a lot of really good things about this movie.  It has a great cast, it's another heist film from Steven Soderbergh who seems to be retiring and unretiring a lot these days, and seemed like a good break between the superhero onslaught and the awards season whales.  Channing Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, an ex-football star and construction worker who was recently given the boot by his boss.  Jimmy has a one-armed bartender brother (Adam Driver), a hair dresser sister and a daughter who lives with his rich ex-wife.  The Logan family has always been down on their luck but Jimmy, still sore from losing his job and facing the prospect of seeing his daughter move out of state with his ex, devises a plan to rob the race track where his old job was at.  The Logans track down safe cracker Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and the other Bang brothers and together they plan to rob the Coca-Cola Classic 600.

Soderbergh is one of the most notable directors of the past 30 years but he might be best known to general audiences for being the guy behind the Ocean's Eleven movies.  Logan Lucky comes off as another heist film from the guy who's made some of the most popular modern heist films but this movie has a different feel to it.  It's less pretentious and doesn't try so hard to be 'cool.'  It's a movie that features some backwoods yokels who seem just enough in control for you to wonder whether they've really gotten in over their heads.  It has a couple very funny scenes and keeps the energy pretty consistent so you aren't feeling bored.  While it hits a lot of the same beats as most other heist films it's still entertaining and just the type of fun, halfway intelligent escapist fare that I think a lot of people wish they could find more of when going to the movies.

For a minute I thought you meant ‘Just Getting Started,’ that stinker with Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones and Renee Russo that was out for about 20 minutes. You’re right, Morgan Freeman’s legacy is intact but he seems to be trying every bit as hard as DeNiro to screw it up. Just check out his IMDB from the last 5 years.

Garden State? One of the top ten movies of 2004, according to the CS! community? You trippin, skink.

And re fall in love with Natalie Portman?

Don't get the love for wind river. Logan lucky was totally shit outside a few lines.

Baby is Clint's last half decent movie.

You might be right. The years just keep adding up.

Life of Pi
Watched 3/7



Life of Pi has been sitting on my blu-ray shelf for over three years. I knew it had done pretty well for itself at the Oscars and one day I saw it on sale on Amazon for five bucks. Why not pick it up? So there it sat on my shelf, one of those 'when I get around to it movies.' I'm sure some of you guys have more than one unopened movie on your shelf that fits that description. I thought since I have some free time on my hands this might be the perfect opportunity to finally knock it out. When I turned it on all I knew was that it had a boy and a tiger, that's it. So considering that there was a few years of suspenseful buildup, how did it go over? Simply put, this movie is not good. Whenever I see a movie with one-liners on the poster or cover boasting of being a 'visual feast' I get a little suspicious in the back of my mind that there might not be a whole lot else underneath. Life of Pi is a pretty ambitious movie but its biggest problem is that it introduces a lot of ideas but doesn't really delve deeply into any of them. Pi is a boy whose family owns a zoo. He grows up in India with many questions about God in Hindu, Christian and Muslim forms. He tries to squeeze all the good aspects of religion into his life even though they're religions that don't really see eye to eye with each other. He tries to relate the spirit of a person to that of an animal. He spends a little time with a dancer his age that he meets. Then one day his family must move to Canada via freighter while bringing the animals with them. When the ship capsizes and sinks Pi finds himself on a life raft with a handful of animals, all of which are quickly killed leaving the lone Bengal tiger with him. Pi spends the rest of the movie surviving on the ocean with 'Richard Parker,' the name he gives to the tiger. It just felt like it was trying to fit a lot of themes into the movie but leaves them by the wayside when it's time for the story to move along. Then come the visuals. The tricky part about having a movie that's heavily reliant on VFX is that almost every movie with few exceptions will begin to show its age after a while. It would be obvious if I said that Life of Pi didn't look as great by 2018 standards but the thing is a lot of the VFX in this movie are pretty piss-poor even by 2012 standards. Yes, there's a lot of visually striking imagery but for every great shot there's one that's really, truly mediocre. Much of it relied on fluorescent lighting and a kind of inverse reflection on the water which looked pretty good but even for the time didn't feel extraordinary. But as I was saying before, it always sounded like fans of the movie wouldn't just lead with commentary on the visuals, it would be all they had to say about the movie. It's pretty obvious now as to why because it didn't feel as though there was much else. Sorry, Life of Pi, I was expecting more than what you had to offer.

Life of Pi works a lot better in 3D than it does at home, it's one of the few movies where that really wasn't just a gimmick and it loses a lot on the small screen.

The Big Sick
Watched 3/9



A few days ago I heard someone on a movie podcast say something to the effect of 'If you were disappointed by Lady Bird then The Big Sick might be more up your alley.' I'm not sure what one has to do with the other as they really have nothing in common but considering how I was one of the few people who didn't think Lady Bird was the greatest thing since sliced bread I thought I would bump The Big Sick to the top of the list. It has a pretty great reputation so it wasn't easy to convince myself to turn it on even though I knew little about it other than it's a romantic comedy. I've seen several movies about comedians, forbidden romance and following your dreams but The Big Sick tackles the issues in a fresh way that never feels like it's forcing it down your throat. I think it's also a little more relatable to me because I know many people who are in the Los Angeles comedy circuit. It almost doesn't make sense investing yourself so much into something knowing that there's a .01% chance that you're going to be famous, let alone make enough money to support yourself. While it's not THE central theme to The Big Sick it makes enough of an impact to where it affects what Kumail is ultimately going to do. It's also a pretty relatable experience that a lot of us have to face; taking the plunge knowing it most likely won't work out vs. don't what's safe and expected. Coming from Los Angeles I'm constantly meeting people who have left behind families, girlfriends, stable careers and more so they can take a crack at their dreams.  I'm not talking 18 and 19 year olds, I mean people who are 27, 30, 35 and anywhere in between. You can say what you will about these people and their decision making process but it helps make The Big Sick somewhat relatable. Again, not deep or wholly original but it's effective here. The chemistry between Kumail and Emily is also pretty clever and not overly generic. Kumail is an Uber driver when they first meet and she's a grad student. They bond over their appreciation for each other and not because of some singular event or coincidental circumstance. All of this is done very gradually and naturally which gives The Big Sick a slow pacing but as I said it doesn't feel generic. Even though it didn't present anything new it didn't feel like I was watching something for the hundredth time. The Big Sick is a really funny, heartfelt movie that, yes, is much more enjoyable than Lady Bird.

Gladiator
Watched 3/10



Hey, not all of these things are going to be something brand new. Every once in a while I'm going to want to watch something we've all seen a hundred times. What got me thinking about Gladiator was a small discussion here about how Best Picture winning movies have changed over the past twenty years or so. In the 90s many of the Oscar caliber movies were big budget spectacles. Dances With Wolves, Schindler's List, Braveheart, Forrest Gump, Titanic, The English Patient, and we'll throw in Saving Private Ryan for good measure (I know, I know). These were big, expensive movies that made a lot of money. Everybody saw them. Now you could speculate as to why people have stopped watching the Oscars and I don't think there's a single, independent reason you can pin it on. Hollywood is more interested in sinking their big money into sure-fire tentpoles. Most of the nominees nowadays are smaller, less commercial films that people are less likely to watch. The voting process with the Academy changed which benefits more obscure movies and can amplify any backlash a movie might receive which is what was rumored to have happened to Lala Land. Finally, maybe people are just tired of having everything politicized with every movie being judged based on its 'diversity' or 'representation' or whether women had as many lines as men and if you're not on board you aren't 'woke' enough (woke also isn't a word). Maybe people want to forget all that for a few hours which is, oh I dunno, maybe why they go to the movies in the first place. But it was only 18 years ago when Gladiator was released. When I was in high school the biggest movie event was probably the Lord of the Rings trilogy being released over 3 different Decembers. I'm sure it's what a lot of people my age remember the most about the movies around that time, certainly more than they remember Chicago or A Beautiful Mind. For me however, it was all about Gladiator. I had just turned 15 when it came out which means I had to have my dad come with me to get my ticket. It was a small one screen mom and pop theater that has long since closed which meant I couldn't sneak in without someone noticing. It was also the movie that I had heard of briefly on Entertainment Tonight and when I went to the school library the next day (I didn't have internet at my house yet) I did a quick search. Coincidentally the trailer had been posted online the day before and it was shared on a website I had never heard of called Coming Soon! That immediately became my go-to for movie trailers new and old and it also dished out news on upcoming movies that were in various stages of production. After about six months of reading that I stumbled across the link to 'Forums.' Fast forward almost two decades and look where we are today? Honestly, that all just came out as I was typing this Gladiator paragraph, I wasn't thinking about it while watching the movie or anything, it just makes me a little teary-eyed thinking that Gladiator, one of my favorite movies of my youth, was also responsible for me discovering CS! Not to get sentimental but I have no idea what my film hobby, my film perspective and anything film-related in my life would look like if it hadn't been for you guys (what's left of you) and the rest of the forums. I can't remember who said it but when the old forums closed someone left a post saying 'CS! was my film school.' I agree in every way. Fucking Mirko. Anyways, even after so many years I still think Gladiator is an awesome movie. It's not the arthouse film that we're used to seeing today up in the awards circuit but it fits right in with the 90s-era winners. It's entertaining without being pretentious. It's big, it's loud, and it still has a good story. Back in those days those weren't mutually exclusive. I was wondering how this would hold up and I'm glad to report that like Million Dollar Baby it's one that I enjoyed as much as I did the last time I watched it however many years ago that was.

It's been a while since I've seen Gladiator, but my memories of it are very positive. It's simple, old-school Hollywood entertainment with some top-notch production and a reliable turn from Russell Crowe. Effectively works as both a really entertaining piece of cinema for adults.

Sounds like somebody woke up on he wrong side of the bed...