"The Midnight SKY" (boo) and good movies recommended by GLPers

I thought it was okay.

3/5

Good to know their efforts were not wasted.

Ordinary people do not want to watch woke nonsense. Typically it's American woke nonsense, thought the BBC has been pushing a lot of ridiculous casting. This is why a many decades old franchise like Dr. Who spectacularly failed.

Critics are mostly people taking money from studios to beef up profits, and they are irrelevant as they mostly come from dying newspapers. Nobody watches TV and leftist youtube sites anymore. That was a profit stream supported by ad revenue and most people have ad blockers so that experiment failed over time.

People are streaming and when it is serialized drama, often binge watching. So that can means 6+ episodes so they read reviews by ordinary folks like at Rotten Tomatoes. They can pick and choose the reviews based on how those voters reviewed other films or serialized drama.

No one wants to invest 6+ hours in some streaming media and for it to be a waste of time.

Hollywood is serious trouble now. They bet the farm on woke joke spending 100+ million and these are not profitable.

There are plenty of decent films and serialized dramas now, but they often are foreign proutions from France, the UK, IRELAND, South Korea, Japan, Norway, etc.

Embrace subtitles because it is that or being furious at Hollyweird.

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The Wave (2015) is a fine Norwegian disaster film about seismic activity leading to a tsunami. Both the huband and wife then heroically save others. It was so popular worldwide that a sequel, The Quake, was released and did well too. Together they make for a double feature night. There is nothing woke about it at all.

Warning though: the Quake ending will upset some folks as a popular character dies.

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The Quake (2018) trailer

ooh! saw The Wave, very moving. Did not know about The Quake; thanks so much.

Great Norwegian Films
The 12th Man
I am Dina
Max Manus
Troll Hunter

Insomnia
The Last King
These are also good Norwegian films.

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Several Suzanne Bier Danish productions are notable like:
Brothers
After the Wedding (2006) this heartwarming. The Hollyweird remake is awful.

Most Mads Mikkelsen films are great.
Flame & Citron
The Hunt
Valhalla Rising
The Royal Affair
The Door
Arctic

Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who was largely unknown to American audiences before Game of Thrones, has made several excellent films.
A Second Chance
The Silencing
Shot Caller

Smart viewers look at Scandinavian films and actors as a large body of excellent films and performances are by these people. Nothing can save a bad script.

Hollywood has run dry on creativity and it is not unusual that they buy te rights to films and remake insipid productions. The original Insomnia is a fine film, but the remake was just not as good.

This is seen in Let the Right One In the notable vampire film that was okay in the American production Let Me In. The original Brothers by Suzanne Bier is an excellent film, and the American film Brothers is okay, but unnecessary.

Two mediocre films getting rave leftist reviews are Nomadland and Minari and both released in 2020.

Nomadland has a widow class to retirement who poses everything as a gypsum plant making sheetrock goes under, and so the entire town dies. Rather than stay and try to make a go of it, everyone abandons the town. Why? Because Hollyweird thinks that is more dramatic and somehow more poignant. Never mind that one could likely make a go of it by staying, and even if one didn't entirely own the home, and squatted, they is no one to arrest you.

This transitions to an entire group of RV owners trying to live as nomads in a clan that has people drifting in and out, and includes real life nomads. Never mind that they all could likely move to my rural state and do just fine. It's better to have a wanderlust.

What makes the film just a headscratcher is a an older man likes the widow, moves to his son and daughter-in-law's rural home, and they kindly invite her. It's implied he might even marry her and they might enjoy the sunset of their lives. Nope. She would rather wander around aimlessly as if this is a virtue?

Weird.

Minari is a film documenting poor South Koreans who moved to the USA to try to start over. They lost family members in the Korean War and are very poor. While having a community in California, they can't make enough money to get ahead.

A 30 something couple whose marriage is rocky, moves to rural Georgia, having bought a property with a bad past. While they are accepted and find work, the husband is goofy as there in no existing wells, and obviously inadequate rainfall to support his agricultural dreams.So rather than allow a local to find him a productive well, he digs his own, and it runs dry.

There's little to like in this family. They don't know what they are doing. They don't seem to really love each other. The only likeable character is played by Will Patton as a charismatic Christian who is simple, naive, and dirt poor. He sincerely likes them and works for them. Other than that, the grandma is an awful cussing gambler and has few skills at being a grandma. The little boy has a hole between the chambers of his heart, and you feel sorry for him, until he pisses in a cup and pretends it's Mountain Dew for his grandma. WTF.

Weird.

Some may like these character studies, but they seemed like timewasters.

Watch something good instead like the Russian Sputnik sci-fi which is a excellent monster flick.

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Sputnik (2019) is a Russian film distributed by IFC Midnight. They have sponsored many good films that otherwise might not be seen like Stake Land.

Two cosmonauts encounter an extraterrestrial and it kills one and comes back inside the other like a parasite. It's an immense creature that is emotionally affected by the cosmonaut's feelings.

Russian scientists are trying to study the phenomena and save the cosmonaut if at all possible. There are many layers to this as they may gain technology or use the extraterrestrial as a weapon.

There are strong performances here as it isn't just a sci-fi action film, but actors trying to rise above the script. It is extremely well done and not at all like a Hollyweird production. You get the immense patriotism of the time period as these early astronauts were simultaneously brave, taking huge risks, patriots, scientists, the best of the best of the best, and so treated like heroes.

It is well worth your time versus many lackluster or even rotten films.

i just watched Cowboys and Aliens again. Loved it even more the second time. Great casting. Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and everybody else.

The reason I watched it is because I am hatching a new hypothesis about gold, which figures prominently in the movie. Won't get into it here, because it would take pages.

But the movie had been in the back of my mind for that reason, and helped clarify things.

Also in this movie is an adorable dog who can detect aliens, and as the case with all great movies, the dog lives.

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Run (2020) is a thriller/suspense film using the Munchusen by proxy syndrome theme of a grieving warped mother harming a child into the cusp of adulthood through medical abuse.

Kiera Allen who is not a classically trained actress, but a creative writer, just knocks it out of the park. What makes the film a gem is she actually does use a wheelchair in real life. She also is gorgeous even unadorned as she is in this film.

This is a pretty good film all things considered. This young lady is one to watch.

Blackburn shows how much Hollyweird hates the cultural icons of the past as they shamelessly do a thin retread of Superboy except he is a monsterous little shit. It's weak sauce torture porn.

I hated it the first time(as did most ordinary viewers) but gave it a second chance thinking maybe I was too harsh. I loathe this film that has his adopted dad shoot the Supervillain child in the back of the head with a rifle. That scene is horrifying and irresponsible, but then we have a mother who gets an eye gouging, and an adolescent girl with her hand crushed, and an uncle whose jaw is ripped off. Par for the course.

This is a film made to create and encourage psychopaths. It has something to offend almost everyone.

Clive Barker films have a die hard subset of horror fans, and maybe they would like Books of Blood? I sure didn't despite Britt Robertson sticking her neck out to do the project. It's a real stinker that vaguely is like a warped macabre Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper except filtered through the campy Creepshow film of the early eighties.

Frank Darabont might have spun this into to gold as he has done so many times, but since sueing The Walking Dead, few will even consider him.

Do yourselves a favor and take a pass. And I always thought I'd watch Britt Robertson just painting a fence too.

H.P. Lovecraft has a body of work that will never be successfully realized for the screen as too much time has passed, and he was an avowed bigot...thus no leftist will touch his art, and he was the king of purple prose as well. Translation: almost no scriptwriter could make it work and still be recognizable. That's Clive Barker's similar issue.

LX 2048 should be better given its talented cast especially James Darcy and Gabrielle Cassi. I have no idea what the director was thinking? This film is an oddity.

Take a pass though there are lots of interesting ideas in the film, that doesn't always translate.

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The Secret Life of Words (2005) is a deeply poignant film of the suffering of a captured lady during wartime. Somehow despite two people having very deeply ruined souls, they find romance.

It works because the director and screen writer and the cast all pulled together as one. That rarely happens.

In the hands of some lame cast and crew, you would end up with The Killing Joke by Alan Moore where it seems exploitative and cheap and vulgar.

Just because the well is dry and hardly anyone can make anything original and meaningful and entertaining...plus profitable, and since there is an increasing demand for content, does not mean that all projects should be made. That will be and has been disasterous...especially with extremely wasteful productions that are "woke".

Hollyweird is clueless as they demand the excision of Trump supporters from America which is genocidal and 50-60% of their domestic profit streams, thus a macabre psychopathic sabotage of their own careers.

Good thinking!

Dreamboat, huh? That is high praise.

oh baby oh baby

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You might enjoy Meagan League (2017), but then it may upset you that dog are used to find IEDs and can get hurt or killed, just like soldiers do.

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Wendy and Lucy (2008) is a Kelly Reichert independent film about a down on her luck young lady trying desperately to get to a cannery job so she can take care of her dog Lucy and get back on her feet. At every turn, things go awry, so it's a very sensitive tearjerker. It is also nearly universally praised.

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Thank You For Your Service (2017) is a sensitively done film concerning returning veteran soldiers with PTSD. The protagonist finds a left for dead pitbull and nurses it back to health. I can't remember if it's a male or female. Anyway, those scenes may be too intense for you.

It's an exception film and Haley Bennett's best film to date.

i want to watch it, is it safe?

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Nacho: A Dog's Tale (2008) is an American remake of a Japanese film made in 1987. Laser Halstrom directed it and is nearly beloved for making consistently sincere poignant films. Practically all of his productions are of high caliber and he can command the best casts for that reason.

The actual Hachi lived in the 1920s and when his master died in 1925, he bolted from the wake, and went to the train station every single day to greet his master for a decade, as was his custom, until Hachi died in 1935. It moved everyone, and they erected a statue in his honor as he was so loyal.

Any dog lover would enjoy watching this bittersweet film, but it sure to be an emotional rollercoaster for anyone who had dog companions die.

Really enjoyed the British film "Patrick," on the n word, about a non dog loving woman who inherits a pug, who proceeds to change her entire life for the better

No dog deaths, Honey.

I heard a similar true story about a dog in Edinborough

As Good As It Gets has Jack Nicolsen as a total jerk writer who warms to a waitress who takes his order everyday. Then starts dating her and sponsors medical care for her very ill little boy. He watches a terrier for a neighbor and doing so thaws his icy heart.

Curse of autocorrect strikes again.