What Emmanuelle Movie Did You Just Watch?

[Ingrid]

The Butler

Oprah was good, Forrest was good. That’s about it. It was just there. Not great, not horrible, just fine. The sheer amount of big names in it was distracting. Two plot points were added in that didn’t happen and need to be there and one did absolutely nothing to further the story. Very meh.

[Abraham Smashington]

Jakob's Wife was some silly fun. Glad they played it straight. Barbara Crampton was excellent and It had some decent if not over the top gore. Felt like it came from the 80's. 3/5

[BillyG]

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Still rules. Still so much fun. Sarah had never seen it, and the ramp up to all the stories merging had her losing her shit. "Oh no! They're not going to get anything! Oh wait, they're totally going to walk away free! Oh they lost the money!" I was cracking up. I think we may try and watch Snatch tonight if she's up to it.

Got about halfway through Psycho Goreman. It's silly and fun. I get why Rob hates the little girl, but she works for me. I wish I was in a better mood to enjoy it, but my anxiety is through the roof and I just couldn't give myself over to it.

[Captain Russ]

McQueenathon courtesy of some streaming service

The Getaway. Peckinpah was a perfect fit for Jim Thompson and I wish he'd had an opportunity to make more films of his stories. McQueen is a right bastard but is totally dwarfed by the titanic bastard Al Lettieri (also probably a common refrain with "wish he'd lived to do more in regards to his filmography in general. Fantastic screen presence here as Rudy). Tightly paced and really strong work by everybody in it, and even the Slim Pickens cameo felt earned as the angel of mercy and escape in the junk truck after all the shit Steve and Ali were put through.

The Towering Inferno. Disaster movies are all pretty similar in their structure but what gave me pause here was how brutal some of the stunt work was throughout, especially with Robert Wagner and his lady. The on the nose messaging of yesteryear feels earnest in comparison to contemporary writing, but as delivered by the likes of McQueen, Newman and Bill Holden, it's hard not to lament the charisma void left in their wake when it came to turning chicken shit into chicken salad.

Papillon. Sober filmmaking without the time period's usual hand holding of music cue manipulations and some inventive interior storytelling via hallucinations and dreams of the imprisoned McQueen. His solitary confinement breakdown is absolutely haunting with how it is portrayed and how the makeup does a lot of heavy lifting in showing the physical toll it takes (though McQueen does really solid work here as well). The story feels a bit disjointed and the lack of chemistry between McQueen and Hoffman rob what is otherwise a very compelling drama of the central bond to carry you through.

[Matt]

rewatched a couple of films that I'm not too keen on to give them another chance.

THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Still sucks. I gave it a good, fair shake this time around to see if it worked for me...nope. Just garish, shrill noise from beginning to end.

TRON: LEGACY. Still...ok. Great effects and production design don't completely hide the fact that Garrett Hedlund is a piece of wood and the story itself seems underdeveloped. I still don't understand the whole Tron/Rinzler thing, but hey...pretty lights swirling around!

[Abraham Smashington]

Still completely off base with The Fifth Element critique. ; )

Mortal Kombat. Like I said on FB - It was good, then it wasn't good, then it was good again. Kano was great even though they completely fucked with his backstory yet again, the opening 7 mins was the best fight sequence in the movie, Cole was stupid and bland, and while it was good for the most part when

  Spoiler: spoilers 

they remembered this was a MK movie near the end and just randomly sent characters off to fight I was annoyed because of how dumb it was in the scheme of things

but then that last fight came and it was great. Love the set up for the second one.

Jax's baby arms were lulzworthy, the explanation for their powers was dumb, and we need a entire Kano movie. The gore was on point however. Goro was neat. and lulz to Dewey Crow voicing Kabal. It's too bad we didn't get his fatality.

7/10

Nobody - What if John Wick was played by Bob Odenkirk? You get this movie. Christopher Lloyd was great as was RZA and I bought Odenkirk surprisingly. That bus fight was fucking legit and his scene at the Russian bar was fucking great. Recommend it.

[BillyG]

Nobody fucking owns.

[Abraham Smashington]

Wet Hot American Summer. This is still probably one of my favorite comedies of all time. Hadn't seen in a few years and we popped it on after MK and proceeded to laugh our asses off. Everyone is on fucking point in this. It's a shame that they couldn't catch lightning in a bottle twice with the revival.

[Matt]

DREAMSCAPE (1984)

I was unsure if I wanted to revisit this one or not. I remembered it being a 'pretty cool' movie and I was kinda scared that a rewatch after all of these years would taint my memories. The good news is that, as dated as the film is in terms of score and special effects, it actually holds up really well. The concept is fun and all of the actors are really having a lot of fun. Plummer and Von Sydow, in particular, treat the film as if it's an Oscar contender. They don't hold back at all, delivering performances which are, to be frank, waaay above this film's paygrade. On the other end of the spectrum, Kate Capshaw is actually pretty bad in this. She did TEMPLE OF DOOM the same year and she's much better in that one.

Of note: the film was PG-13 when it was released and was one of the first films to come out with that rating. I never saw it theatrically but instead saw it on HBO quite a few times (where it seemed to be a staple for a year or two). This was the rare PG-13 movie with nudity in it, and it was rather infamous for that nudity. It looks like all of the remastering that's been done has been on the alternate TV cut, which is rather odd. As it stands now, the film is could probably get a PG rating.

Funny to watch it and see all of the nuggets which were mined from the film to create INCEPTION.

[Abraham Smashington]

Primal Fear. Was in the mood for a good courtroom flick and this fit the bill. It's crazy that this came out 3 years before Fight Club as Norton looks like a baby in this. Gere is on point, Braughner is great in his pre-Holt role, I always enjoy seeing Maura Tierney show up in anything, Terry O'Quinn rocking the sweet stache, and Frasier's Dad was great on the stand.

It's been years since I've seen this but it totally still holds up. Norton really fucking nails his character and Gere plays perfectly on the smarmy/not smarmy line.

Bonus points for sexy Linney just smoking wherever she wants. "THIS IS A BAR!"

[Matt]

I just watched that within the past few weeks, Rob. It's pretty great and it's hard to believe that it was Norton's film debut.

[Abraham Smashington]

The Mitchells vs The Machines.

Really fucking liked this a bunch. The animation was fun to look at, the voice actors were on point (the dude who played the little brother was fucking hilarious), and I really just liked the overall aesthetic they went for.

Sony movies may be ehhhh, but their animated stuff is getting much better.

[Matt]

I've heard that that's wonderful, Rob. It's on my list for sure.

[Abraham Smashington]

FWIW Lesley really fucking loved it. She was cackling throughout.

[Abraham Smashington]

Bone Tomahawk. I originally slept on this due to my general dislike of western flicks. My bad. This was pretty great. Loved Richard Jenkins and wish we got a bit more of David Arquette. We were taken aback by the level of violence and then I realized who directed this and it all made sense. Just a great flick without a bit of fat.