What Emmanuelle Movie Did You Just Watch?

[Abraham Smashington]

After picking up the sweet Unbreakable trilogy soundtracks on Vinyl a few days ago, decided to have a rewatch.

Unbreakable is still so goddamn good. I miss when Bruce Willis gave a shit.

[FilmNerdJamie]

I remember seeing Staying Alive in the late-90s on TNT and not thinking it was as bad it's reputation insisted.

And contrary to popular belief, it was actually a big commercial hit.

[B_Metal]

STAYING ALIVE was definitely...a movie.

Actually, it’s more of a music video. It’s just one song after another (by either The Bee Gees or by Frank Stallone) and it gets rather tiresome.

The plot throughline actually is pretty solid, though. Tony becoming a professional dancer is the logical step for him, and seeing him struggle just like any other novice dancer feels authentic. There’s no reason to think that he’d be an immediate success and the film plays up that struggle pretty well in the first act. Him seeing a chance to steal the lead role is in character, and I buy him getting in there and nailing the role and earning it.

The finale is all overdone bullshit, though. Watching ‘Satan’s Alley’ is borderline laughable and is borderline camp. Him strutting at the end kinda redeems the prior 20 minutes, though...it’s a smart move and ends the film on a good character moment and a good riff on the far superior SNF.

Also, Travolta deserves credit for committing to the film 100%, physically. Reading up on it, he apparently trained for 5 months or so to get a dancer’s physique and it shows. He’s convincing as hell in here.

But hoo boy, the script. The whole thing with the romance with the lead dancer is balderdash. Where SNF treated relationships with authenticity, this film treats them as cliches and tropes. Nothing lands. It doesn’t help that the film is deliberately PG and lacks the edge of SNF in terms of being adult about matters.

It’s not a good movie but it’s strangely watchable.

I can't technically argue with any of your points but damn if I'm not roped into to watching this one EVERY FUCKING TIME.

After picking up the sweet Unbreakable trilogy soundtracks on Vinyl a few days ago, decided to have a rewatch.

Unbreakable is still so goddamn good. I miss when Bruce Willis gave a shit.

Unbreakable is so fucking good, Split is so fucking good. Glass is good but it kind of pissed me off with the ending in that it makes it feel like there would be more films in that universe when it probably won't happen. And yeah, Willis is tremendous when he's not waiting at the pay window before a script is even developed with his hand out.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Friedkin Uncut is the kind of bullshit from someone who wanted nothing more than the "Greatest Hits" compilation of Friedkin's filmography. Hard pass.

[Abraham Smashington]

Happy Death Day. This shit should have been rated R with some amazing Final Destination kills. It was not rated R and had no amazing Final Destination kills but it was a bunch of fun actually. Nice little double feature with Palm Springs.

[Abraham Smashington]

Split. McAvoy is a goddamn actor and just owns this. Also, that slow burn of the Unbreakable music sting coming in at the end? Goosebumps. So goddamn gooooood.

Time for Glass now.

[Matt]

I remember seeing Staying Alive in the late-90s on TNT and not thinking it was as bad it's reputation insisted.

And contrary to popular belief, it was actually a big commercial hit.

I mean, It's a competently made and acted film, and it has a certain earnestness to it that appeals. It just feels so watered down after the totally compelling SNF (the PG rating here really, really hurts) and the big stage show at the end is so completely overwhelmingly overdone that it's tedious to the extreme.

[FilmNerdJamie]

There is so much going on in that movie and it gets nowhere near the praise it deserves.


Hell, it's one of the movies where the PG edit made it into a different but better film.

Hard R-rated films that were so successful the studios cut a PG version towards the end of its run to squeeze a few extra bucks out.

Saturday Night Fever and Excalibur are the only examples I know of. There were others?

[Anderson]

Hard R-rated films that were so successful the studios cut a PG version towards the end of its run to squeeze a few extra bucks out.

Saturday Night Fever and Excalibur are the only examples I know of. There were others?

Paramount did it all the time. WB and Orion did it back in the day for HBO too.


Barbarella is the earliest example I can think of it happening.

[B_Metal]

Happy Death Day. This shit should have been rated R with some amazing Final Destination kills. It was not rated R and had no amazing Final Destination kills but it was a bunch of fun actually. Nice little double feature with Palm Springs.

Split. McAvoy is a goddamn actor and just owns this. Also, that slow burn of the Unbreakable music sting coming in at the end? Goosebumps. So goddamn gooooood.

Time for Glass now.

Sometimes Rob, you like some weird shit and I'm like WTF. This is not one of those times. 100000% agree with all of that. EVERY FUCKING BIT

[FilmNerdJamie]

Catch up from the last couple of days:

Mr Holland's Opus is earnest enough. The acting is fine and its heart appears to be in the right place. But at the end of the day, it is 90's-era awards-bait fluff. I found myself laughing at the DERP thread where several of us tore it to shreds partially this comment.

When they were at the parade and he finds out his son is deaf I was like, "yeah, fuck that kid!"

While it was one of those VHS favorites growing up, Spaceballs just doesn't hold up, save for the occasional bits like the "Now Now" scene that I would rank among Brooks' best.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture remains profoundly boring. It looks and sounds dazzling but Goddamn where is the pulse?! Can not imagine how monumentally bored audiences (hungry for more genre adventure fare) must have been that Christmas.

The Producers remains outrageously funny. Heard from several pals who commented how accurate it is to showbiz. The balls it took Brooks to do this just 20 years after WWII (with many of those wounds still fresh). What would seriously burn him today is all the gay stuff. Film Twitter would outrage themselves into a stroke.

[BillyG]

Django Unchained

Felt like shit, wanted something familiar to not pay attention to while dying with these sinuses. Still my preferred re-watchable QT movie. I don't know that it's my favorite, but it's a really easy movie to slip into, and it never feels like the almost 3 hours that it is. I always forget that Leo doesn't show up for an hour...and then you still have 2 hours left. I just love everything about the movie. Every scene is a gift.

[Abraham Smashington]

Happy Death Day 2 - Holy shit, I wish these movies had better names, because this sequel is one of the best "horror" sequels I've seen in a long time and goddammit I want the third one now.

What a fun fucking franchise with a stupid name and shitty trailers.

Highly recommend watching both of these almost back to back if you can. It's like BttF trilogy (will totally be if we get the teased third) hahah.

[Abraham Smashington]

Cop Car. Finally checked this out. Dug it. Kevin Bacon was great and those kids were totally believable. Great shit.

[Matt]

We're having fun going through the Bruce Lee movies in that new Criterion set.

So war, we've done THE BIG BOSS and WAY OF THE DRAGON. Both are great but the fights in WotD are amazing, and the final showdown between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris is phenomenal.