It's a really great script. Powerful performances, deft and effective filmmaking, stylish production, themes that resonate. It's not the greatest Argentine movie ever but it's really good, IMO

yeah, but the theme is what got the movie to the oscars and what might make it win.

John Cazale appeared in five films over seven years, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Impressive.

random movie thought: I think one major problem with All Quiet on the Western Front is that it has less to say than the original movie. 90 years later, and the best they can do is a simpler movie. tree nailed it in his early review: pretty much the only message of the movie is that WWI was gruesome and war is bad. That's all I got out of it. The 1930s version says all that but also has a lot more to say about the foolishness of patriotism and of old men who send young boys to war. There's not a lot of that in the new movie, really. Or of anything, really

Take it to the Argo depreciation thread

I enjoyed reading your thoughts, Argo. Don't listen to Trag.

(Unless he's talking about organic produce or something idk.)

The score is better. That's the only thing

I also enjoyed his thoughts on this!

thank you all for likeing my thoughts. at least we can all agree it was better than that john cazale bologna lenny was going on about

It's not bologna.

Did I make this and forget I made it?

three minutes of mad musical mayhem. Phantom Lady (1944) and oh boy what a scene this was

Wanna elaborate on this



- It's a movie where two of its three main characters were introduced in Disney+ shows, one of them as a tertiary character. Barrier to entry: high.
- It won't be buoyed by the anticipation generated by the films released before and after it, like Captain Marvel was by coming out in between Infinity War and Endgame.
- It's a sequel to a movie that, despite being very commercially successful, was fairly divisive in terms of audience reaction.
- It's being released in the pre-Christmas death slot.
- Bad press and negative word of mouth from people hating Ant-Man 3.
- Unlike Guardians 3 (which is increasingly feeling like the last chopper out of Saigon) this isn't being hyped as the last chapter to a saga.

I also believe that because it stars three women (two of which are women of color) and since it will likely espouse some ham-handed liberal politics, it will be victim of review bombing by the absolute biggest losers on Earth, but that will be canceled out by the "it sounds like we're upsetting the RIGHT PEOPLE!" #Resist crowd who will buy multiple tickets because they believe stanning a superhero movie will advance us towards a fairer world.

It used to be insane to bet against Marvel but I honestly believe this will underperform significantly.

- I heard there was some trouble behind the scenes. Larsen getting that "difficult to work with" tag.

- the effects might be better since it sounds like they are actually going to take time on them for once.

Hard to bet against Marvel until they have a legit bomb on their hands, though.

Potentially related

I hope she wasn't Doug's new tenant

Read this and it was pretty good:



- Honestly pretty inspiring. Crazy that this movie got made.

- being a difficult asshole really pays off.

- Miller's fallback plan if his directing career failed was to go back to being a doctor. Not a bad consolation prize.

- Can you believe Spotlight won over this and Revenant? What a joke.

- Now I want to see the 4 hour cut.

I've been wanting to read more movie books. Too often they are either along the lines of "the flower is a metaphor for his aunt's vagina" or "I am one specific mildly successful filmmaker and here is my very specific opinion about what movies are and I am right about this" or "Warren Beatty had sex with seven hundred women in the year 1978, and here are their names".

It's hard to find worthwhile ones. I'll look for this one. Thanks, Burt

Two other ones I really enjoyed:

Silver Screen Fiend by Patton Oswalt

Some book Jorge recommended about the tumultuous production of Bonfire of the Vanities

And then Powerhouse (about CAA) is amazing, but it’s all about the biz side of things. Tons of fun gossip though