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widower2

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I went to the actual theater and saw the movie Where the Crawdads Sing.  It’s about a girl who is abandoned at young age to live alone in her cabin on the marsh.  Even tho she is an outcast from the town she thrives on her own with help from a few kind individuals.  It’s a coming of age movie which was made from a best selling book that came out not too long ago.  I thought the book was good and I thought the movie was well done.  It’s been long enough since I’ve read the book that I wasn’t concerned with any discrepancies.  

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Sabrina - 50s movie starring Audrey Herpburn, Bogart, and William Holden where a servant girl for a rich family ends up in a love triangle. Another "OK" movie IMO, even taking into consideration when it was made. 

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On 7/18/2022 at 8:49 PM, widower2 said:

Sabrina - 50s movie starring Audrey Herpburn, Bogart, and William Holden where a servant girl for a rich family ends up in a love triangle. Another "OK" movie IMO, even taking into consideration when it was made. 

Confession: I didn’t love Bogart in that one. I didn’t dislike him in general, of course, but it was like he did it because he was under contract and didn’t quite fit the character. I like the movie overall though.

On 7/26/2022 at 4:20 AM, reader said:

It's one of my favorites. They did an updated version with Harrison Ford.

I like the remake quite a bit too. I would have loved if they could have had Harrison Ford and Audrey Hepburn together.

Harrison Ford fit the role perfectly, IMO.

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8 hours ago, foreverhis said:

Confession: I didn’t love Bogart in that one. I didn’t dislike him in general, of course, but it was like he did it because he was under contract and didn’t quite fit the character. I like the movie overall though.

Bingo, exactly. Hepburn and Holden did well, but he had this mailed it in performance about him. 

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Went to the theater again (My sister-in-law buys tickets without me knowing to get me out of the house) and saw Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.  It was an absolutely charming movie.  If you have the opportunity to go when few people are at the theater (I hate crowds) and want a feel good movie this is a good one!  It’s a bit of a chick flick and it’s set in London/Paris in the late 1950’s.  It has a great cast and was well acted.

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Thanks will keep in mind (for rental..I don't go to theaters). 

7 Faces of Dr Lao: a mostly forgotten 1960s gem (IMO) starring the quirky Tony Randall in a colorful and wonderfully quirky movie, kind of a Disney thing but with a bit more edge, where he plays an old Chinese man who bring a strange and magical circus to a small southwestern town. It's a shame it is forgotten. He is at his best here, playing various and highly diverse characters with ease. Barbara Eden co-stars, among others.

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If any of you have Disney+  I highly recommend Free Solo.  It is a 2018 documentary film of a young man, Alex Honnold, who is quirky and very likeable, with a passion for rock climbing.  He is an incredible athlete and super human in his ability to overcome fear.  He climbs El Capitan without any ropes. 

Even though you know the outcome, it is incredibly suspenseful. 

Alex Honnold has done a Ted Talk about the climb as well. 

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Wreck it Ralph: A Pixar (I think) animated movie, aimed to kids for sure, esp if one is or was into video games at any point in their life, but a fun and well-done movie regardless IMO. 

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A Walk Among the Tombstones: Liam Neeson stars in a typical action crime thriller Liam Neeson film where he's a retired cop and is hired by a drug dealer to find his wife's killers. It's pretty much by the numbers, which IMO isn't bad per se, but does limit the potential. It was worth the watch if you're in the mood for that kind of film, mostly because of Neeson, but nothing great (warning it does have some violent moments obviously, but they're pretty good about not too much blood and gore, which I can't stand). I do like that he wasn't the "super-human" guy he was in similar films, somewhat more believable.

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The African Queen: Bogie and Hepburn, how can you miss? This is touted as a classic, and I liked it OK, but to be honest only that. I am a huge fan of both but I didn't see what all the fuss was about. 

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A really interesting film is Fantastic Fungi.  I watched it on Netflix but it may be on other services too.

Really opened my eyes to other inhabitants of our plant earth.  Quite amazing. 

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On 8/19/2022 at 11:54 PM, widower2 said:

Wreck it Ralph: A Pixar (I think) animated movie, aimed to kids for sure, esp if one is or was into video games at any point in their life, but a fun and well-done movie regardless IMO. 

I watched Wreck It Ralph last night and enjoyed it very much.  Thanks for the recommendation.

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Glad you liked it. There is a sequel that I heard was good too FWIW. Pixar has a great track record!

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Jeremiah Johnson - Robert Redford stars in a somewhat quirky film loosely based on a real guy, a mountain man who shall we say is at odds with a Native American tribe (don't want to give away too much). Saw this a long long time ago and it came on TV so re-watched.I liked it but not as much the second time around. Still a good film, but saw more flaws in it this time. I always love and respect an understated film, but this one takes it to a fault and often drags...and the main character has about as much personality as cardboard. On the plus side huge props to the two main supporting characters, including "Grandpa Walton" Will Geer.

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Scrooge - Scrooge is a 1970 musical film adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 story A Christmas Carol and IMO the definitive adaptation of it. Finney is outstanding and it's excellent all around. Something for this time of year 

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Thanks.  I've been watching some seasonal stuff, like Elf, and just watched Hook, not really Christmassy but in the same spirit. 

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On 9/14/2022 at 10:00 PM, Gail 8588 said:

A really interesting film is Fantastic Fungi.  I watched it on Netflix but it may be on other services too.

Really opened my eyes to other inhabitants of our plant earth.  Quite amazing. 

Hi Gail. That sounds interesting and enlightening.  I will have to check it out.

On that note, I saw a wonderful documentary on PBS, Nature called "My Garden of a Thousand Bees."  It was made during the first year or so of the pandemic by an wildlife/nature filmmaker in England who was bored with SAH orders.  He decided to find the nature in his own backyard and discovered a fascinating world, which he turned into a 1 hour documentary focused on the myriad species of bees.  A friend recommended it to me and I'm really glad she did.

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Hook was good.

I'll have to keep an eye out for the PBS documentary (leave it to PBS right?). They had a pretty good one on awhile ago that was about penguins...apparently there are about 13 or 14 diff kinds of penguins and they did a short piece on each one. 

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42 minutes ago, widower2 said:

They had a pretty good one on awhile ago that was about penguins...apparently there are about 13 or 14 diff kinds of penguins and they did a short piece on each one. 

I don't think I've seen that one. 

Confession:  In college, one of my best friends and I developed a "thing" for penguins.  It was our in joke, I guess, and started while we were doing homework with Monty Python on in the background; the exploding penguin scene.  For years, we both collected fun penguin things.  Then, as most collection do, it became, "What do we get Annie for ______?  Oh, let's do something with a penguin."  In my 30s, I pared down the collection to the ones that really mattered to me and asked for no more, please.  But I tell you, the antics of penguins got us through some crappy classes our freshman and sophomore years.

John and I used to have memberships at a number of museums, as well as the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  We'd take the girls (that would be our daughter and my very much younger sister) for day outings regularly.  To the Marine Headlands for a walk, then to Golden Gate Park to the de Young and/or the Academy.  Finally, a stop at the Japanese Tea Gardens for a stroll and tea and cookies.  John made sure that we were at the Academy for one of the penguin feeding and interaction times every visit.  The girls loved it, but he did it for me.  It's the small things, isn't it? The things that let me know he paid attention and that my small moments of happiness mattered to him as much as the big ones.

Anyway, I still love penguins.  They're so improbable and so goofy and so entertaining.  I have an original stuffed Opus the Penguin (that's Bloom County comics for any youngsters on here) sitting on a shelf in the bedroom.

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I always liked penguins too. As you say, improbable (a bird that can't fly...but can swim. wth?). And they're just kind of cool looking. Also I'm a Pittsburgh Penguins fan (hockey team). :)  And Opus was by far the best thing about Bloom County!

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Cold Mountain - Jude Law and Nicole Kidman star in a Civil War flick about how they fall in love right as the war breaks out and how he tries to get back to her and her struggles as she waits. Didn't really work for me. There was no chemistry between Law and Kidman; some interesting characters, but the screenplay didn't really do them justice overall. It just seemed tedious overall. 

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I just watched Glass Onion, a murder mystery on Netflix, by the same folks that made Knives Out.  It has the same character as the private detective as in Knives Out. 

I didn't like it nearly as much as I enjoyed Knives Out.  

I'd give Glass Onion a C minus. Disappointing since I really enjoyed Knives Out, an A film in my book.

  

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I totally agree with you on this one Gail.  The movie got great reviews too but I preferred Knives Out over Glass Onion.  I feel the plot line flowed better in the first film and the second one was too fragmented.

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On 12/30/2022 at 1:44 AM, Gail 8588 said:

I just watched Glass Onion, a murder mystery on Netflix, by the same folks that made Knives Out.  It has the same character as the private detective as in Knives Out. 

I didn't like it nearly as much as I enjoyed Knives Out.  

I'd give Glass Onion a C minus. Disappointing since I really enjoyed Knives Out, an A film in my book.

  

Thanks for the warning. I liked Knives Out too.

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On 1/2/2023 at 5:31 PM, widower2 said:

Thanks for the warning. I liked Knives Out too.

I had no fewer than five friends tell me not to bother with Glass Onion. These are people I trust to know both my tastes and my tolerances.

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On 9/14/2022 at 10:00 PM, Gail 8588 said:

A really interesting film is Fantastic Fungi.  I watched it on Netflix but it may be on other services too.

Really opened my eyes to other inhabitants of our plant earth.  Quite amazing. 

Hi Gail. I watched Fantastic Fungi last night. I loved it!

I only like eating mushrooms a few ways and I am picky. But I do love many of the blue cheeses.  And I have always marveled at the power of fungi.

I had never heard about the moldy bread used to dress wounds, though I did know about the smallpox treatments during the Revolutionary War.

It is all so fascinating. What a difference it would make if we went back to understanding and exploring the mechanics of how fungi are necessary for our very existence.

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So glad you liked Fantastic Fungi.  I was amazed by the information.  Makes you realize how little we really know about our own planet. 

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The Prophecy - A mid 90s film starring Christopher Walken as an "angel gone bad" in Gabriel, who is heading up a war between the angels and goes to Earth to capture a "dark soul" that will win the war. Except the Devil isn't in charge of the other side and doesn't even want the war. Yeah it's as nonsensical and stupid as it sounds tbh, don't bother, I'm a sucker for these kind of films which is unfortunate as they're usually pretty bad! 

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Curious as to why you are a sucker for these types of movies?  Is it the afterlife/Angel theme? If so, I get it..  

I really want to see “A Man Called Otto” with Tom Hanks.  Unfortunately it just hit the theaters and I dislike going so I will probably wait.  Several years ago I read the book it’s based on ( A Man Called Ove) which I enjoyed very much.  I also watched the movie on Netflix I believe.  It is a Swedish movie so if you do watch it, it’ll be with subtitles.  The movie is about an older grumpy man who has lost his wife and is trying to find his next steps in life.  The beginning of the movie is a little upsetting (for me especially) as Ove is finding a way to take his own life.  As those of us who have lost our partner we can relate but this might be too much for some to watch in a movie setting.

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Yeah I mean the afterlife, angel/devil kind of thing. It has nothing to do with my loss or anything in particular, I've just always been a sucker for those kind of movies. :)  

I haven't gone to a movie in the theater in many years and no interest in ever doing so again because it never fails there are people who don't know how to behave in a theater (and/or keep their kids from misbehaving). Big Hanks fan but I'll wait for the rental!

 

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I agree with you 100% about the theater thing.  I will only sit in the top row so no one is behind me and I go in the middle of the week, first showing of the day after the movie has been out for a few weeks…this is only IF I really want to see the movie.   And of course this was mostly before I lost my husband…when we would go to maybe 2 movies a year :D

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Yeah strictly a renter here. I can't believe some online service hasn't come up that has a HUGE selection of movies and not just the current stuff. Of course the older stuff should cost less to rent than the newer ones...like if I wanted to see what came out just last year, that would be more, but if I want to rent Splash, that should be like a buck or two tops.

Just re-watched Chocolat, which I saw many years ago. Holds up well. 

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On 4/4/2023 at 6:39 PM, widower2 said:

I can't believe some online service hasn't come up that has a HUGE selection of movies and not just the current stuff.

Do you mean physical DVDs or streaming options?

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I mean streaming (DVDs are on the way out - I think Netflix in fact just stopped offering DVD rentals). 

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Toy Story 4 - A worthy addition to the series. Annie Potts co-stars with Tom Hanks and the usual crew of Tim Allen, etc though they are more in the background on this one.

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I realize probably most of you aren't into the comic book movies much, I'm not too much either, but they at least tend to have a lot of action and can be fun in that lighthearted way.......but saw Dr Strange's Multiverse movie last night and IMO it was pretty bad. 

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I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix.  A sort of documentary? 

It was interesting.  Interviews of a lot of people involved in developing various social media platforms and their concerns about how social media  has had some terrible impacts and how that might be fixed, if anyone had the motivation to fix it. 

I recommend it, but it is a bit depressing. 

 

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Sounds interesting...

This is getting off of movies a bit, but there are a number of documentaries posted on Youtube of all kinds FYI.

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@Gail 8588 I watched The Social Dilemma probably a year and half ago.  I promptly recommended it as a must watch on my Facebook feed to all of my friends and family.  That was my last post ever.  Several months later I deleted my account.  I truly dislike how much manipulation the media (of all sorts) has over people and this was one of  ways I could disengage from it.  Don’t miss it one bit!

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Thx for the tip on YouTube documentaries.  I’ve been into those lately, so interesting.  I seem to find them more (I don’t know if entertaining is the right word) than regular movies right now.  I must be an old person! 🤭

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Run - A psychological thriller about a mother who lives with her daughter disabled at birth but all is not what it seems - another movie highly rated and I can't imagine why. Poorly written which dooms the film; it's like a few amateur hacks said "hey let's write a psychological thriller." Virtually no character development, which kinda matters

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The Vast of Night - Easiest to just copy this summary from wiki: The story takes place in 1950s New Mexico and is loosely based on the Kecksburg UFO incident and Foss Lake disappearances. The film follows a young switchboard operator and radio DJ as they discover a mysterious audio frequency that could be extraterrestrial in origin.

And I'm about ready to give up on the idea of looking at highly-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes for movie ideas as this is another one which stunk. I can't believe I stuck it out to the end because it was boring, but I'm a sucker for sci fi and kept hoping it would improve. By the end I didn't even care what the conclusion was. It was like Contact, a ton of buildup for a quick and disappointing ending, the diff being that the buildup in Contact was really good.

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Wolfwalkers - Finally a good movie after a string of duds. Animated feature about a girl who befriends a "wolfwalker," who are human when awake and wolves when asleep. Really well done IMO. Nothing ground-breaking about the story, kind of by the numbers, but I don't care about that if it's well done. Nice story, characters, and loved the unique "sketched" style of animation.

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