Edgy MD

Threads! These films could use threads!!

It's not a question of what's available. I have the money available to buy a boat, but it probably wouldn't be the wisest move.

Fun fact: I feel like I spent the year watching **** on screens, but the only nominated film I saw was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, nominated for Best Score. I'm such a shlub.

When the field of nominees for Best Film is expanded to 10, but the field of nominees for Best Director remains capped at five, it's almost like they are engineering this sort of controversy into the process. I'm probably not going to get too animated.

And he's attempting to perform under (supposedly) stricter PED enforcement.

I feel like we're hitting a curious era of Wes Anderson-y movies that aren't Wes Anderson movies. It'll probably lead to some weak derivatives, but also open up some new avenues for other talented folks. I'm happy to see early returns here suggest this might be the latter.

Mark Ruffalo is amazing in that all his characters maintain the untenable balance of being constantly uptight while simultaneously seeming like they've smoked way too much weed.

I have this cued up. I fear that this sort of movie is hard to make work anymore. It's hard to make folks feel like the corporation is beatable, or is even the enemy. DuPont (and it's seemingly always DuPont) should be convincing enough as a universal villain.

I like to think of Local Hero of the godfather of all these types of movies, but some may see precedents much earlier, in films such as Sullivan's Travels. What's clear is that Britain and Ireland (and Scotland and Canada, etc.) generally do this sort of film much better than the US does, as an American leading man leaving it all behind to join a community of neighborly people trying to live decent lives always rings false from the get-go. This film nonetheless feels over-formulaic, with too much of the cinematic story — like Moneyball, but moreso — superimposed onto a non-fiction book sold in the business section. The protagonist of the source memoir — the titular Dave — is even shoved aside in favor of building the story around Dave's young solicitor, who may or may not be entirely fictitious. It's got enough good will for its audience, certainly, that you likely won't turn it off, and that's not nothing. The appearance by (insert big-shot dinosaur butt-rock act here) feels a little like they went to turn the film into the studio, but were told that they needed a marketing hook, and so they were sent back out to re-shoot a couple of scenes with (insert same big-shot dinosaur butt rock act here). As an aside: The Dave of the title is played by Rory Kinnear, son of great British character actor Roy Kinnear who plays nervous, dishonest, glad-handers in all almost everything British and funny from 1964 to 1990.

A Bhutanese schoolteacher, disenchanted by his career, plans to move abroad, to try to make a go of it as a singer in Australia. But he still owes the govenment one more term on his contract, and they assign him to the "most remote school in the world" — a village of a few dozen Yak herders, high up the Himalayan slopes. [FIMG=400]https://images-worker.bonanzastatic.com/afu/images/2058/4404/c8d6_11131649302/F_403_.jpg[/FIMG]

Its very much of a piece with any number of British — and not a few Irish — films from the 90s (and some earlier). Suit from the big city is taken by business to a colorful backwater. Despite initial cynicism, he is taken by the decency and pure-heartedness of locals, and romance + personal transformation draw him into their fight, which is a microcosm of a larger counter-modernist struggle across British or Irish (or Scottish or Welsh) or global society. Despite the Hallmark-iness of such themes, what makes or breaks such films is usually the tone. The leading man, in this case, is the guy who played the roadie in Yesterday.

A successful, self-made car dealer, scandalized by the British financial system's failure during the 2008 global financial crisis, along with the subsequent public bailout, quixotically tries to bring financing back to the people by opening the first new bank in Britain in 150 years. The system gets rocked.

It's 1969. A crotchety archaeologist, on the verge of a crotchety retirement, gets caught up in a race between his god-daughter and an old Nazi adversary in the hunt for a legendary relic. [fimg=350]https://i.etsystatic.com/25432943/r/il/374dec/5001362458/il_1140xN.5001362458_lrrr.jpg[/fimg]

Who was the poster who'd give us really detailed reports on his trips to various ballparks, drilling right down to always letting us know if he was able to score free soft drinks at the designated driver station?

Can Warner make a DC film that's ... fun? They almost kinda sorta did it with Shazam!, but there's something that makes them want to Dark Knight their whole universe, and it just feels unhealthy.

Rude Boy fell off a little down the stretch, finishing at .271 / .414 / .449 // .862. That'll still be a terrific look sharing the outfield with Luisangel Acuña next season in Syracuse. That is, if the injury sustained in the second half doesn't continue to hamper him, and that's an open question, as the Mets have never specified the nature of the injury. Hey, maybe this is the case that got Billy Eppler in trouble.

This is a GOOD pick.

Holy crap! First Vic Sage appearance in over three years!

My wife hunted this down again tonight. Terrific to stumble back into it.

Grizzled Texas Civil War veteran makes his living going from town to town and reading the news from far-off places to the hardscrabble folk trying to rebuild their lives in the war's aftermath. On the road between Wichita Falls and Dallas, he finds a lost girl. After sussing out her backstory, he reluctantly becomes her protector as he tries to unite her with her only living kin, as together they brave the hard roads of a rough country in a mostly lawless time. Features an alarming paucity of Queen music. [FIMG=450]https://lostposters.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/rs_w_1200_h_1200_614e4a70-1995-4a83-aae5-3804146b2cac.jpg[/FIMG]

Clearly you're a huge Mannequin fan, I see.

I just didn't get this film. My wife read to me an article that was titled "Hocus Pocus is a garbage movie that doesn't deserve your nostalgia." It was delightful and it made me try to think of other films that fit that description — films that were objectively excremental but it didn't matter to a generation who saw it at exactly the right age, and have kept it ever-green and ever-profitable by continuing to return to it. I wanted to put The Goonies and The Sandlot in this category, but couldn't bring myself to do it. The folks who defend those films are folks I have too much respect for, and I'll just assume that I missed something special and important. I'm not sure I can ever be as charitable to other well loved youth-oriented garbage of the past like Dirty Dancing or St. Elmo's Fire or Mannequin — and certainly not to Hocus Pocus — but fans of The Goonies and The Sandlot? You and me are good for now. For now! Anyhow, impressive interview. The kid seems to be on a root beer rush.

Thursday evening, Julio broke out of a 10-at-bat hitless mini-slump, going three-for-four with a homer and four RBI. His 39 RBI leave him tied for fourth in the massive (50-team) DSL.

When irony becomes substance and substance becomes irony and people are trying to get with the program but aren't sure whether they're being sincere or camping it up ... kind of makes this feel like 2023's most 1990s movie.

Born in 1999 in Kankakee, IL, the year the city was rated (by somebody) as "America's Worst Place to Live," in response to which David Letterman (or The Late Show) donated a pair of gazebos.