The Movie and TV Thread

toomuchbaloney said:

We watched Leave The World Behind yesterday.  It was fun with many familiar faces.  

That's on my list.  I had a friend that didn't like it so it's stayed unwatched.  Maybe I'll give it a view as I'm looking for something to watch.

Amazon suggested that I would like "Station to Station" and I thought I would watch it.  I gave it a try but the script was mediocre and the acting seemed forced.  It had good intentions with dealing with some issues dealing with relationships but it fell flat.  I stopped about abhor in.  

 Fremont is a movie about an Afghan woman that used to be a translator for the American military that got out when the Taliban took over and lives in Fremont, California.  It's a very slow moving movie but has a lot of depth in that it deals with her loneliness and isolation (not everyone liked that she worked for the "enemy") and survivors guilt.    

"Forgotten Love" is a move by Netflix from Poland and dubbed in English

Wikipedia says:  Forgotten Love is a universal story taking place during the interwar period about a respected surgeon professor Rafal Wilczur, who is at the peak of his successful medical career when his wife unexpectedly leaves him, taking with her his beloved daughter Marysia. Abandoned by his wife, he falls victim to a mugging and as a result of head injuries loses his memory. Following the mugging he is presumed dead, but resurfaces 15 years later in the countryside, no longer aware of his identity with complete loss of memory. However, even after years of amnesia, professor Wilczur has some intermittent memories of his daughter and is able to practice his profession. When he crosses paths with his daughter once again, he is reminded about his love for her.

There's also a side story of his daughter who is a waitress in a tavern who meets and falls in love with a rich Count.  

Apparently it's based on a popular novel in Poland and this is the third movie remake of it's.  It's very well done, tragic and uplifting. 

"Passages" is set in Paris and involves a man in a relationship with a man who sleeps with and begins a relationship with a woman.  He seems to want the best of both worlds and a relationship with both them.  The movie speaks of issues with all three of them about this as they navigate who to deal with the situation.  

It was a good movie, and got mostly good reviews,  and the characters not that likable or relatable.  

Saltburn is an Amazon Prime movie that's British.  It revolves around a young man with a bad home life that gets invited to spend some time with his much richer friend at their estate called "Saltburn".  There are several twists and turns that keep you attention.  It was generally well acted but Barry Keoghan is a bit unconvincing as a college freshman aged young man as he looks a bit older (he's 31 in real life).  But overall a good story.

"You Are What You Eat" is about a study that involves twins to take genetics out of the equation and analyzes what happens when one goes plant based and one stay ominivore.

Clearly it was made by people with a plant based agenda and offered no input from omnivore diets like low carb, keto and paleo. All the experts were advocating against animal products.   They did make sure both groups got healthy food and exercised.  

Nothing really new to me as they spoke of the environmental and health impacts of the animal agriculture business and the standard American diet.  

They were fair in presenting that most of the omnivores in the four sets of twins (out of 21) they followed gained muscle mass (one of the vegans did) and two of the vegans lost muscle mass.  But on other metrics like LDL cholesterol and telomere length the vegans faired better.  

One interesting thing, like their other documentary "The Game Changers" which included a segment on men's erectile function, they studied the female genital blood flow during arousal and showed the two vegan women had better blood flow after 8 weeks compared to when they started.  Good blood flow to genitalia is often a sign of overall good or bad cardiovascular health.   

Anyway, sorry to ramble on.  I am well versed in the world of plant based nutrition and these kinds of series just reinforces me to keep making good health decisions.  

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2024/01/02/you-are-what-you-eat-netflix-twin-documentary-results/72085986007/#

Maestro is a Netflix biopic about American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.  It's getting a lot of love at awards season so far getting Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Director nominations at both the Golden Globes and Critic's Choice Awards.  It stars Bradley Cooper, Carry Mulligan, and is directed by Bradley Cooper.

It's really a well done movie that focuses on his relationship with his wife, but also touches on his bisexuality.  

"Anatomy of a Fall" is a French film that is the critics darling this year winning a prestigious prize at Cannes, Gotham Awards, and recently Golden Globe for best feature not in English and Best Screenplay and has a slew of other awards pending.

It's a very well done, well written and acted movie that keeps you wondering did a woman kill her husband or did he kill himself.  There are no witnesses.  

Loved it.

"Good Grief" is an queer Netflix movie by first time director/actor Dan Levy (of Schitt's Creek fame).  At first I thought is was ready to be cliche as it starts out with the perfect marriage and a tragic accident.  Then guy grieves and finds out a secret about his husband's past.   Still it held my attention and was a good solid movie that was too overly cliche and sentimental.

I've long outgrown Gay Young Adult "coming of age" movies, but decided to watch "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe" which got some decent reviews.  It's a lovely story of two boys in the 1980's that meet in El Paso.  It has the usual dancing around the subject, gay bashing, rejection and denial that these stories tend to have.  It's presented well and has a satisfying ending.

On a side note, it's based on a book by former colleague of my English professor friend who said he was not well liked in that he neglected his duties as a professor and used his job as a paycheck so he could focus on person writing.  He also had a drug addiction.  But he didn't begrudge him his success.

Faraway is a Netflix rom com.   It's a good, if not somewhat predictable, movie about a woman "finding herself" and happiness after inheriting a house in beautiful Croatia and finding out her husband cheated on her with a younger woman.