Jake Gittes

Happy birthday CJohn! [whispers] hey guys let's all go and surprise him at the playground

This'll do I suppose.

Oh. Yeah I'll be asleep then. Gonna put something together now.

Wasn't it "due by November 20"? Can you just say how many hours from now.

No reason to think this'll be any less mediocre than Murder so I'm out. I'll just watch the David Suchet episode of this instead.

This better not get dragged out to three months the next time we do it (if we do it) btw. Clearly none of the added time was used productively

It did on me.

Counterpoint: no. It is not.

Still wish they'd go back to that system. Yeah you might get a Blind Side among your nominees but it's worth it for A Serious Man, Up, Toy Story 3, District 9, Winter's Bone type nods.

Really doubt you'd like it if you didn't The Lobster.

Is it because or because

This didn't really work for me. Saw people saying that the deliberately stilted acting and detached tone got them more involved in the story but for me it did the opposite. At a certain point it started feeling like the kind of movie that tries to be edgy and provocative via just having characters say and do random aberrant things, I don't think that was Lanthimos' intention but I just didn't get much more than that from it. Way too drawn-out and only occasionally funny, although the climax does manage to find humor in genuinely one of the bleakest scenarios imaginable.

Well this got a January 25 release date here. Looking forward to it becoming another Child 44 I guess.

What's the exact deadline? Wondering if I can cram in another movie or two. In the meantime: In the Company of Men is pretty outstanding and probably in my top 5 of the year right now, The Sweet Hereafter didn't really work for me which was a major surprise (too careful, too elegant, neither digs into the raw wounds nor risks pulling back to depict an entire community instead of just six people, don't even get me started on the Pied Piper of Hamelin nonsense), Perfect Blue and Eve's Bayou both quite good and the latter in particular deserves so much more attention, Deconstructing Harry solid in spots but a shrug on the whole, and Con Air (seen for the first time in 10-15 years) honestly reaches its own kind of transcendence with the whole Nic Cage playing Forrest Gump as Mulleted Action Hero, hardass convicts dancing to "Sweet Home Alabama", Ving Rhames being intimidated by Steve Buscemi thing it's got going.

Yeah this checks out.

Hmmm

Hey guys. The place still standing? Anything big I missed since the 10th? Any [glances at the critical and box office reception of a certain picture] hall-of-fame meltdowns?

The shark in Jaws still looks great to me. Probably because they worked their asses off trying to make it work and applied real talent and craft. The CGI and compositing in this look crappy to me not because I want them to but because they just do. And yes it's far from the biggest problem with the movie but it's symptomatic of its general laziness.

The avalanche stopping the train looked like some early 2000s shit.

If anything takes Cruise down I'd expect it to be Scientology-related.

There's a Charlie Kaufman movie in there.

Keanu and Goldblum would surprise me, just off the top of my head in addition to those mentioned above. DDL too probably (there's a really dark joke here about how it's good that he never had to play a sexual abuser). Jeff Bridges and Woody Harrelson unless I'm a little too trusting of the general chill peaceful vibe they project. Has that Toni Erdmann remake with Nicholson never moved forward after all? I would love to see him in a great role one last time, even at the risk of stories potentially surfacing.

Spacey only shot 8-10 days and his is a supporting role.

I'm guessing Bay talked her into doing it with his Coen fanboyism in addition to the paycheck.

If Spacey were innocent it would seem logical that he'd be denying the accusations with all the force and conviction he could possibly muster, instead he's "seeking evaluation and treatment" and doesn't seem to be putting up much of a fight. That by itself is telling.