The Official Movie Thread

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Thanks to the lovely free trial of peacock premium, I got to see The Northman. Can't believe anyone enjoyed this, just do not resonate with the shallowness of Eggers after The Witch.

The Wikipedia recaps of the original source material sound more interesting than what was played out. It's unclear to me why so much time was spent with the visions and why Eggers would have thought this would not only be enjoyable, but effective for the narrative. Just skip this, not worth anyone's time. Nothing here. Icelandic sagas, let alone the Hamlet origin story, have so much more to offer than this garbage. Blah

Also wasted some time watching the Total Recall reboot after abandoning the Robocop reboot just before. Jesus Christ :lol:
 
Emperor of the North (1973, dir. Robert Aldrich)
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during the great depression, a growing group of homeless outcasts get around by hopping on trains for free... but nobody gets a free ride on the number 19, ruled with an iron fist by ernest borgnine, and if they try it probably won't end well...

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then again, wily old lee marvin's hopped about every other train in the northwest, earning his reputation as the number 1 hobo, and then there's the kid played by keith carradine who's gunning for that title.

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like something out of an animé, the three engage in a battle of wits as the pair try to ride the train all the way to portland without necessarily being best of friends themselves. things get pretty intense in places...

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RYM classifies it as new hollywood but it screams old hollywood to me, as you might expect from a director who made his name in the '50s and '60s with brutal, pared down (and in the case of kiss me deadly, borderline lynchian) genre movies. there's little of the european malaise the likes of altman, hellman and rafelson brought to the table, in fact i wouldn't be surprised if this straightforward old-school thriller was a deliberate reaction against that movement.

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it isn't perfect, a little hokeyness creeps in on occasion and the mythologising of the hobos is pretty silly, but it's so cool that something this fun and violent and ridiculous existed in 70s hollywood when everything else was so cynical and doomed. i don't think i've ever seen a train movie i didn't like. or a lee marvin movie, for that matter.

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