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Past Lives. Saw it with my Daughter in a theatre yesterday. Outstanding film about the messiness of real life versus missed opportunities with regards to finding true love. For me, it was a real tearjerker in the best way.
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I’m so jealous. A24 films seem to take forever to be released in the UK.
I don’t understand why film release dates can vary so widely from country-to-country. If someone here works in the industry and can provide an explanation, I would love that. I see the UK release date is late August/Early Sept. I hope it’s worth the wait for you.
2n season of Your Honor was surprisingly good, with a few unexpected twists. I didn’t think it needed another season after the first, but was pleasantly entertained.
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I don’t like getting ensnared by series, but that mention came at just the right time; thanks. I let myself get sucked in the first season, and remember thinking it might be worth sitting through the second.
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Countries have different laws and procedures for getting films into theaters. In the UK, a film has to watched and rated by an official govt agency. Many Asian and middle-eastern countries have specific laws and cultural restrictions on what can be portrayed in film. They also may implement quotas as to the number of foreign films or how long they’re allowed to run in theaters, in order to allow room for the (usually much MUCH smaller, lower budget) domestic films.
Most big studios would LOVE simultaneous world-wide release, as it would reduce the flow of pirated copies into markets where the national premier is much later than the world premier.
Film distribution used to be a much more complicated deal, as it was the distributors that would be arranging to print actual reels of film and distribute them to theaters. With the advent of digital capture and projection, that’s less of a concern, though there are still many places where digital projection isn’t yet the norm, and those places still need big ol’ reels of celluloid. And some directors (P. T. Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Tarantino) insist on actual film for at least some engagements (I saw Hateful Eight, Dunkirk, Interstellar, and Licorice Pizza projected on 70mm film in the last few years).
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Currently rewatching I Love You Man. IMHO an underrated Frat Pack flick!
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This is going to be… interesting. So far, fondue & Toblerone have made appearances in a torture scene.
Not for the lactose intolerant 
Swiss Army katana vs off-brand Nazis?
I’m sold. 
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as a die hard turophile i’ve always believed in the power of cheese. more gratuitous close ups of hefty cheese wheels please.
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All caught up on Curb Your Enthusiasm so I have started on the 1961 season of a real gritty classic – Naked City (Amazon prime).
For those of you looking for absolutely no-brain-required amusement, season 2 of Is It Cake? is out on Netflix.
Spoiler alert: Oh my god, it’s cake!
Watched The In Laws. It was alright as a comedy but not as good as the 1979 original. Story is not that convincing, just a few sequences pasted together.
Then I watched The Outlaws. Again it’s alright for a few jokes but not much entertaining as there’s not much of a convincing story.
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There’s very little that’s better than the chemistry between Arkin and Falk (“Serpentine! SERPENTINE!”), but I will say, if it HAD to be remade, casting Douglas and, more importantly, Albert Brooks was about as good a choice as possible. Brooks in particular seems like Arkin’s natural successor for playing put-upon, suburban neurotics.
In fact, it’s probably long past time that I revisted some of Brooks other brilliant work, including Lost in America, Mother (w/ Debbie Reynolds!) and the 1979’s eerily prescient Real Life, about a family that agrees to live on camera 24/7, which was a pretty out-there premise at the time. If only they’d known what was coming…
Incidentally, if you like moody, atmospheric modern noir, Drive (w/ Ryan Gosling) uses Brooks against type as truly scary villain.
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I have been watching the space station late at night
HQ-spotthestationmail.nasa.gov
and am looking forward to seeing some northern lights tonight, separately.
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The only proper justice to the original film is Douglas in Falk’s role in the new movie. But then Douglas hasn’t been given much to work with. A story that doesn’t cohere very much, and revealing his role to the bride’s family in the middle of the story, the son already knowing what the father does, all that dilutes the potential for a great end.
What I didn’t like specifically is the girl still left drowning in the sea most probably dying. As a comedy she should be saved too, and there should be a close to all events I believe.
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Tonight it is Moone Boy and Pride.
Halfway through The Diplomat (on Netflix) and really enjoying it. It’s a bit crazy but kinda reminds me of elements of the writing in The West Wing.
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One (2023 Chris McQuarrie)
See Tom.
See Tom run.
Run, Tom, run!
See Tom fight!
Fight, Tom, fight!
See Tom fall.
Fall, Tom, fall.
It’s an M:I movie. Tom Cruise does stunts, with the occasional break for an exposition scene or one of those mask sequences. You’re either on board for it or you’re not. At 167 minutes long, it’s a LOT, but it largely maintains a sense of fun throughout.
There are several parallels here between this and the recent Fast X including a “ghost from the past comes back to get our hero” plot line, some spectacular vehicle chases in Italy, a sense of the franchise truly giving itself over to its own ridiculousness, and an explicit Part One, that seems to becoming deriguer this summer, as studios try anything they can to keep folks coming to theaters (There’s this, Fast X, and Sony’s Into the Spiderverse that are all half, or possibly 1/3, of a story).
It’s what it says on the tin. You either like that, or you don’t. If you do, this is an entry well worth your viewing. If not, you probably stopped reading before the first line break, and that’s ok too.
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