{"id":13598,"date":"2024-05-05T17:03:17","date_gmt":"2024-05-05T21:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13598"},"modified":"2024-05-05T17:03:33","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T21:03:33","slug":"13598","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13598","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Movie Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt18363072\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/1-202x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Royal Hotel\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13599\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/1-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/1-690x1024.jpg 690w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/1-768x1139.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/1-1035x1536.jpg 1035w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/1.jpg 1096w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0085412\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/2-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Deal of the Centiry\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/2-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/2.jpg 511w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt21397580\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/3-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Suitable Flesh\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13601\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/3-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/3-692x1024.jpg 692w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/3-768x1137.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/3.jpg 1013w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li>Well that escalated quickly. Or should I say <em>Quigley<\/em>, as in down under? (Look, that&#8217;s a terrible not-even-a-joke, but nobody else is reading these, and it&#8217;s been rattling around in my brain all week.) Anyway, things go from bad to worse very quickly at a remote Australian pub in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt18363072\/\">The Royal Hotel<\/a>, and it&#8217;s a credit to the filmmaking that tension is almost enough to keep you invested, despite fizzling out a little at the end.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0085412\/\">Deal of the Century<\/a> is terrible, and it would be easy to blame all of that on Chevy Chase, depending on how grating you find his particular brand of smarm. But I think he&#8217;s actually sometimes quite good here, intentionally undercutting that smarm with some pathos and dramatic weight. The problem is, the movie is played as a comedy, and not a single moment of it is ever even a little funny.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt21397580\/\">Suitable Flesh<\/a> is fun, if never as much fun as you hope it will be, or as much fun as the &#8217;80s Stuart Gordon Lovecraft adaptations it&#8217;s clearly emulating.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1735485\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/4-210x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Tunnel\" width=\"210\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13602\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/4-210x300.jpg 210w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/4-717x1024.jpg 717w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/4-768x1097.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/4-1075x1536.jpg 1075w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/4.jpg 1120w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0110998\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/5-205x300.jpg\" alt=\"River of Grass\" width=\"205\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13603\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/5-205x300.jpg 205w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/5.jpg 684w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 205px) 100vw, 205px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt12818328\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/6-202x300.jpg\" alt=\"Hundreds of Beavers\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13604\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/6-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/6-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/6-768x1139.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/6-1036x1536.jpg 1036w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/6.jpg 1214w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li>Like a lot of found-footage horror movies, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1735485\/\">The Tunnel<\/a> seems to understand the strengths of the format but not its weaknesses. The movie is often genuinely scary, and its structure suggests it&#8217;s going to do something clever and unexpected&#8230;but then it just <em>doesn&#8217;t<\/em>.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0110998\/\">River of Grass<\/a> is a lot more interesting as a first step in the evolution of Kelly Reichardt&#8217;s career as a filmmaker than as a film on its own. It&#8217;s much more disjointed and uneven than any of her later films\u2014occasionally interesting, but the only one of her films I wouldn&#8217;t recommend just on its own merits.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt12818328\/\">Hundreds of Beavers<\/a> is clever and silly and often very funny, but its brand of absurdity is a hard thing to sustain for almost two hours.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0031022\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/7-204x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes\" width=\"204\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13605\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/7-204x300.jpg 204w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/7-697x1024.jpg 697w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/7-768x1128.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/7.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 204px) 100vw, 204px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt3263904\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/8-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Sully\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13606\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/8-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/8-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/8-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/8-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/8-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/8-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/9-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Children&#039;s Hour\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13607\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/9-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/9-684x1024.jpg 684w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/9.jpg 736w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li>While perhaps not the world&#8217;s greatest mystery, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0031022\/\">The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes<\/a> is a lot of fun.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt3263904\/\">Sully<\/a> works <em>very<\/em> hard to manufacture tension, and yet it makes the strange decision to depict the crash entirely in flashback sequences, after we&#8217;ve been reminded several times that everyone on board the flight survived. It&#8217;s no wonder the movie reportedly invented from whole cloth a much more antagonistic NTSB investigation into that crash\u2014without it, there&#8217;s little to any dramatic weight in the entire film. Hanks is&#8230;I suppose <em>good<\/em> in the titular role, but it&#8217;s hard to bring much to such a reserved and self-effacing character. Despite a couple of gratuitous flashbacks to his youth and several conversations (over cellphones, never on screen) with his wife, by the end, I never felt like I got to know anything about Sullenberger <em>except<\/em> that he successfully landed that plane.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>The are some good things in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0054743\/\">The Children&#8217;s Hour<\/a>, including some nice subtle moments in Shirley MacLaine&#8217;s performance. But the way the movie often plays coy with its subject matter doesn&#8217;t necessarily work in its favor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also re-watched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0165078\/\">After Life<\/a>, which I haven&#8217;t seen in some twenty-five years, but which is still a lovely and bittersweet film. Two decades ago, I was maybe surer of the memory I would pick to take with me, were I to die and face this particular afterlife. Now I&#8217;m not so sure, but I also think that might be sort of the point. As Roger Ebert wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/after-life-1999\">in his original review<\/a>, &#8220;Which memory would I choose? I sit looking out the window, as images play through my mind. There are so many moments to choose from. Just thinking about them makes me feel fortunate.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well that escalated quickly. Or should I say Quigley, as in down under? (Look, that&#8217;s a terrible not-even-a-joke, but nobody else is reading these, and it&#8217;s been rattling around in my brain all week.) Anyway, things go from bad to worse very quickly at a remote Australian pub in The Royal Hotel, and it&#8217;s a &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13598\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13598"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13610,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13598\/revisions\/13610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}