Last Movie Watched

[brettac1]

Stunning film, regardless your level of interest in professional wrestling.

Can't wait to see this. The Von Erichs need a 12 hour docuseries made on their story. Maybe the film getting some acclaim will make that happen. Til then, the gold standard remains the Lapsed Fan podcast series "The Lamentable Tragedy of World Class" (which is incredible and I have listened to it multiple times).

[bovine knievel]

[beantownbubba]

A double feature last nite.

John Wick - Exactly what I was looking for and exactly what it should have been.

Elvis - I don't remember much about the reviews on this one, but it is better than I was expecting. I thought Austin Butler was very good especially compared to the thanklessness of the task as Elvis and that Tom Hanks's performance was excellent which turns out, after a quick search, to be very much a minority view.

[beantownbubba]

A double feature last nite.

John Wick - Exactly what I was looking for and exactly what it should have been.

Elvis - I don't remember much about the reviews on this one, but it is better than I was expecting. I thought Austin Butler was very good especially compared to the thanklessness of the task as Elvis and that Tom Hanks's performance was excellent which turns out, after a quick search, to be very much a minority view.

PS Butler's close resemblance to John Travolta circa Saturday Night Fever was fairly distracting.

[chuckrh]

Irie! All Hollywooded up say I & I!

[beantownbubba]

Devil in a Blue Dress, the movie version of Walter Mosely's classic detective story is pretty good. It has Denzel, so it's halfway home from the get go. It's hard to say what keeps the movie in the "good but not great" category, maybe the pacing? But it's a solid movie worth watching. As always depictions of African American life in the postwar era are shocking in the normality of the brutality and oppressiveness of the all encompassing racism of the times. It's the very matter of factness of it that gives it it's power.

The Accountant was a fun watch but suffered by being 2 movies that never quite came together. It was part nerdy thriller and part action/gore avenging shoot 'em up and the attempt to merge them was interesting but imho unsuccessful. But like I said, a good attempt plus it does have Ben Affleck (apparently not a universally loved actor but I like watching him) and Anna Kendrick ('nuff said tho not a great role).

[brettac1]

Stunning film, regardless your level of interest in professional wrestling.

Can't wait to see this. The Von Erichs need a 12 hour docuseries made on their story. Maybe the film getting some acclaim will make that happen. Til then, the gold standard remains the Lapsed Fan podcast series "The Lamentable Tragedy of World Class" (which is incredible and I have listened to it multiple times).

I finally watched this last night and it was a bit of a miss for me. Maybe I had too high of expectations or got too distracted by various inaccuracies but it didn't quite deliver on what I hoped it would be. The story is simply too big to be boiled down to a 2 hour movie, it really spans decades. Honestly, it's probably too bleak to be successfully dramatized at all. Hell, they had to completely omit Chris even existing to try to keep it from being impossibly sad (even though it's true). For me, it may have been better if the Von Erichs were used as the basis for a fictional family rather than calling it based on a true story. It wasn't a terrible movie by any means but felt it had a lot of unrealized potential and gets a little too scattershot at times. Some great performances, though. Thought Holt McCallany was especially good as Fritz. The wrestling scenes were well-done and the recreation of the Sportatorium was fantastic. I'll keep holding out hope this story will get the docuseries it deserves. Hell, it blows me away that there hasn't been a definitive independent book written on the family to this point, either.