I stayed up late last night and watched what I thought was a real good movie on Tubi. Limbo (1999) was so good that maybe it was better than real good. David Strathairn and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio played the leading roles, and Kris Kristofferson (who did not dominate the movie) played a smaller role that turned out to be critical to the movie. The movie lasted two hours but it kept me so engaged that it didn’t seem that long; the first hour set up the second hour, and in case anyone has not seen it and wants to, I will not spoil it, but it went somewhere different than where I thought it was going when it got started. I did a google and apparently Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio did her own singing, and she has a very nice voice.
Movie/film suggestions.
While this is of course a forum for the discussion of all things audio/hi-fi and music, pretty much all of us are also lovers of movies, the enjoyment of which is effected by the reproduction of the sound they contain (with the exception of silent movies 
).
I've been focused on David Lynch movies since his death, but with current events so much a part of our lives at the moment, I plan on re-watching a movie I’ve seen only once, and years ago. That movie is:
The Madness Of King George. Apropos, no?
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I'll see if I can find that one, @slaw , Woody can be very good. He did an outstanding job with his role in No Country For Old Men. |
@slaw , I found it on Tubi. I watched about the first five minutes, and that was enough to be able to tell that it should be dark and funny. My kind of movie. I may stay up late tonight and watch it, but if not tonight, definitely later this week. Thanks for the tip. |
That was a pretty good movie on several levels, @slaw ; after it got going it wasn’t quite what I expected, but it did make me laugh several times. It was well cast; Woody gets into his roles and Elias Koteas did a good job as a corrupt cop. (He was why I was expecting the dark comedy that did not exactly materialize. But it did make me laugh, and overall I’d say it was dark.) The crack addicted prostitute, Kat Dennings, made me think of Cedar Rapids (Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Isiah Whitlock, Alia Shawkat) which was another entertaining movie, but in a different manner. |
I did a google and it looks interesting. It appears as if I can get it on Peacock, so I'll probably give it a look. Texas Killing Fields was a movie that I enjoyed enough to watch more than once. Small cast but I felt that the acting was decent it came off as intense and believable. |
As I've never seen that one, @bdp24 , I just did a google and it looks interesting. As I mentioned previously in this thread, I found his small part in Body Heat memorable (when he was cautioning William Hurt about the dangers of committing arson). |
I couldn’t remember if I had seen that one or not so I did a google and yes, now I remember it. That was a pretty good movie and having Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton was a plus. I recently watched American Woman (2018) with Sienna Miller and Amy Madigan. It was a well put together drama with good acting that evolved from a crime/tragedy and was set in a working class town with everyday people somewhere in Pa. (it was filmed in Brockton Pa. and I think I remember Bucks County being mentioned in the movie). The script, characters and plot were believable/realistic and it kept me engaged from beginning to end. |
I don't know if this was already mentioned but Out of the Furnace is one unrelentingly somber take on family, drug addiction and poverty with Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Zoe Saldana, Woody Harrelson (as one mean villain), Willam Dafoe, Forrest Whitaker and Sam Shepard. It'll drain you. All the best, |
I remember watching Out Of The Furnace, @nonoise . If you enjoy movies with a theme of despair, check out Animals (2014). It is not an action movie and has no big names, but if follows two heroin addicts (Jude and Bobbie) from good families who are living in a car, and what they do to obtain heroin. I wouldn't think it would have taken much of a budget to make this movie, but I thought it was surprisingly well done. There is a scene I remember where the female lead says to the male lead something to the effect of "why would two kids from reasonably good families end up doing this," and the male lead answers something to the effect of, "I don't know babe; why do birds keep flying into picture windows?" (I doubt I got those quotes 100% word for word.) |
I have always been confused by the Power Dynamic in Georgian England at the time of the American Revolution. The King did have the power to appoint and dismiss Prime Ministers and ultimately had to sign off on most decrees. Monarchs such as Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II basically rubber stamped the Parliamentary decrees but not George III. He was known to have been particularly, and personally, incensed by actions such as the Boston Tea Party and was determined to make the colonies bend to his will. He was opposed by Conservatives such as Burke but the Kings opinion had great value with Parliament at that time |
Fav Western....McCabe & Mrs. Miller ... A look at what that era was likely more to have been....gritty, dark, dank, full of men mostly hanging on by knotted bootstraps with the occasional near-psychotic gunslinger with nothing and no one to stop him.... You want to go back to that time and places? |
I thought that I had mentioned Fatman (2020) in this thread, but I cannot find it, so just in case I’ll mention it again because Walton Goggins is supposed to be hosting SNL tonight and that made me think of it. Anyway, it is a very dark comedy starring Goggins and Mel Gibson. It’s hard to do justice to in a paragraph, but it involves Santa and his elves taking on a government military contract and also a child who had received a lump of coal and then hires a hitman to bump off Santa Clause. As I remember, it had me in stiches, and although I didn’t like the series The Shield, I generally enjoy Goggins’ performances. @nonoise ,
that makes me think of Winter’s Bone (2010), which I have previously mentioned and was about the effect of methamphetamine addiction and production on a poverty-stricken group of people in the Ozarks. With Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes and Dale Dickey (among others) for a cast, I got a gritty and dirty and real vibe. Given you enjoyed Blast Furnace, I think you would also find this to your liking. |
@immatthewj I can't tell you how many times it's been on with my intention of watching it and I never got around to it. Its now added to my list. As long as these suggestions are leaning towards noir, I'd like to add a bit of horror and recommend Antlers. It's as dark as one can get and the special effects are a bit of a gut punch. It stars Keri Russell and Jessie Plemons as siblings with a dark past struggling in a dying mining town. While looking it up I noticed the price for the Blu Ray came down considerably so I may just buy it. All the best, |
I can get Antlers for free, @nonoise ; it is queuing up as I type! |
@immatthewj I hope you like it. I found it to be dark, grim and the ending was no better. |
Dark and grim are accurate descriptors, @nonoise . I was not expecting a happy ending, but that was sort of like what would happen if Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy decided to collaborate on something. |
Roadie (2011) is a movie with a musical theme that I found to be easily watchable. Ron Eldard portrays a member of BOC's road crew who has recently received his walking papers from the band’s management. This was part of his identity, and in the movie he has returned to his hometown (Queens, NYC) where instead of admitting that he is no longer on the road crew, he tells people he is actually running the show. He meets up with a hometown girl (Jill Hennessy of Law & Order fame) he seems to have had (and still does) and her alpha male a-hole bf, played by Bobby Cannavale. |
I enjoyed The Revenant myself, @bdp24 , and theoretically it is based on a true story and in real life Glass supposedly let bygones be bygones. I remember a reference to Colter (who I assume was the mountain man/trapper John Colter) (I remember when I was in grade school learning that Colter had spent some time in the area now known as Yellowstone National Park which had then been jokingly referred to as "Colter's Hell" because his stories about that area were viewed by some as outlandish). After I watched that movie I tried to follow up on the Colter aspect, and I remember reading on the internet that this was one of the inaccuracies of The Revenant as John Colter was not present at the time and event depicted in the movie. But despite that, I found it an enjoyable watch. |
@nonoise , since you are a fan of movies depicting characters and situations in the margins (and outside the margins) of society, have you seen Gone Baby Gone? With a fairly strong cast (including Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan) it is a layered drama that explores a blurry line between right and wrong and revolves around the abduction of a toddler in a tough working-class neighborhood in Boston. This was in my original top eight picks. |
@immatthewj Yup. Enjoyed that one too. No one's really all that clean. Always been lured to the dark side of human nature, where it crosses into light. Speaking of which, have you ever seen State of Grace with Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris and Robin Wright? Great cops and mob movie with the mob being of the Irish variety. Made in 1990 but still holds up. All the best, |
I don't think I have, @nonoise . It certainly has a strong cast. I just did a search and it is available for free this week on MGM+ or on Tubi, so I am going to check it out before the weekend is over.
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