Off Topic

[fatlever]

Triangle of Sadness was one I expected to win some more accolades, but Everything everywhere all at once was a masterpiece, so I get it.

I really enjoyed triangle of sadness. I thought it had a lot to say in the third act. I'm sure most people either loved it or hated it. My girlfriend didn't care for it and fell asleep in the first 20 minutes. Probably a good thing because I think she would have lost her lunch during the middle part.

[fatlever]

Walt, are you on letterboxd?
I try to watch a ton of movies. I keep track of everything I watch on that app in the diary give everything a grade. I don't normally try to do the Oscars stuff though. Last 3 years I've watched on average about 250 movies a year.

I've got a spreadsheet for all my favorite movies that I watched from 2024. It was a weird year where I didn't just absolutely love anything but there were a lot of really solid movies. Saw quite a few random smaller indie movies that were pretty good this year as well. I rarely give anything higher than four stars. And this year nothing got higher than four stars but I had quite a few that were either three and a half or four stars.

I'll post the screenshot of my rankings when I get on my laptop later. Off the top of my head I'm pretty sure substance and Anora were probably my two favorite movies.

I'm not on letterboxd, but I'm checking it out now and it looks pretty handy. I have an evernote note that I use to keep track of movies, but it is a pain to sort through.

250 movies a year for 3 years is very impressive.

Anora and Substance being high on your list is encouraging, I think the plan is to watch The Substance or Nosferatu tonight so we can compare the different makeup category movies while they are fresh.

Did you watch Longlegs? Didn't notice it on your list, but seems like a good bit of horror, so maybe it didn't rate high enough. Nick Cage, what a weirdo.

- I'm pretty easy to find on Letterboxd if you do join. My username fatlever

- The 200-250 Movies a year over the past several years includes a lot of rewatches of 80s and 90s comedies. And plus a lot of that is just mediocre streaming movies and low budget horror movies. I have a lot of time on my hands knees so...

- curious to know your thoughts on the substance. They definitely made some choices.

- I did see longlegs couple months ago. I had been looking forward to it for a while and was a little underwhelmed. I think I ended up giving it three stars. Solid. It just felt a little too much like a silence of the lambs remake. And I can't say I particularly liked the way Nic Cage played that character

[fatlever]

Damn 250 a year is impressive. I can only get about 100 in a year. We got similar taste

Top 20 of 2024

Challengers
Dune 2
The Substance
Love Lies Bleeding
Civil War
Longlegs
The First Omen
Strange Darling
Chime
Oddity
The Brutalist
The Bikeriders
Late Night with the Devil
Abigail
Alien Romulus
Trap
It's What's Inside
Hit Man
Kinds of Kindness
Hundreds of Beavers

Still need to see Anora, Conclave, Nickel Boys, A Real Pain, The Order, and Evil Does Not Exist

Looks like I need to add chime to my watch list.

Wait, you actually liked the movie trap? I thought it was hilariously awful. It was so bad that I actually really enjoyed it. So it was ironically good.. Just felt like a giant promo video for M night's daughter's music career. Her acting was pretty bad. Josh Hartnett was the only half decent thing about that movie.

[amcoolio]

I too am on a movie kick recently since im inbetween games having played the **** of out a few specific games this year (Balatro, Persona 5, Hades, Binding of Isaac and Slay the Spire)

Here's thoughts on what ive watched in the last week (heads up I really love financial/empire building films):

Moana 2 - Okay, but not as good as the original which was incredible. Really misses Lin Manuel Miranda's music
Gladiator 2 - I went in with low expectations but I really really loved it including Denzel's performance. Gladiator 1 is one of my pantheon movies and this is a good sequel. Was not bored at any point
Sonic 3 - Not as good as the first two (which are highly underrated, Jim Carrey is absolutely excellent in these) but still enjoyable
AIR - Was excited to watch but ended up bored. Felt like overacting by Damon and Affleck. Pacing was off.
Tetris - Pleasant surprise, really well done movie. If you like movies like The Founder or Social Network, watch this one. You also can't go wrong with 80s/90's USSR movies
Blackberry - Another pleasant surprise, way more engaging than AIR
Terminator/Terminator 2 - I don't get it. Maybe I missed the era. I was excited to watch but was bored, and disappointed with T2 since I heard so many good things. Sarah Connor's actress was good but I was underwhelmed. Compare to Jurassic Park a couple years later and its not close, it does everything well that T2 didn't
Den of Thieves - Watched because I listen to the Rewatchables podcast and they keep mentioning it.. it was just alright, Butler's performance was great but its not something I'd watch again
Dune 1 - Man was I BORED. I really hope Dune 2 picks up. And I love fantasy.
The Gambler (2014) - Actually enjoyable watch, I like gambling movies with Rounders being another pantheon movie for me. I just wish it wasn't Walhberg, even though he did a good job

[fatlever]

I just watched Gladiator two couple of nights ago. Yeah I was pleasantly surprised not blown away. The series Spartacus is one of my all time favorite shows in the history of TV. Just absolutely adore that show. Could definitely tell the writers of gladiator two had plucked a few ideas from Spartacus. Nothing major but just little things you noticed that we're almost identical to some scenes in Spartacus and not in a gladiator fighting in the ring kind of way. speaking of Spartacus, they're coming out with a sequel to the show on starsz later this year by bringing back a dead character in pretending like he never died. We'll see

Definitely agree about blackberry. That was definitely a pleasant surprise. Same for Tetris.

[fatlever]

Here's what I've watched so far this month. Don't laugh, I finally decided to watch the fast and furious movies, having not seen any of them since Tokyo drift. I really can't stand Vin Diesel, but I've been in the mood for just some big dumb mindless blow action kind of movies lately. Finally went back and watched all of the mission impossible movies from the past 10 years that I hadn't seen.

[luciano-davidwesley]

late '23 and '24 movies i watched last year, in order. out of 5 stars - nothing higher than 4 stars last year for me. here's everythng i had ranked higher than 3 stars. dune 2 not included, so hold your outrage.

You should be using column B to put the star rating in, then sorting by alphabetical order and using the filter function when needing to sort by rating.

Your lack of Excel formatting concerns me

[luciano-davidwesley]

Terminator/Terminator 2 - I don't get it. Maybe I missed the era. I was excited to watch but was bored, and disappointed with T2 since I heard so many good things. Sarah Connor's actress was good but I was underwhelmed. Compare to Jurassic Park a couple years later and its not close, it does everything well that T2 didn't

I absolutely love T1 and T2, sorry I can't relate to this.

[Benjamin Linus]

Looks like I need to add chime to my watch list.

Wait, you actually liked the movie trap? I thought it was hilariously awful. It was so bad that I actually really enjoyed it. So it was ironically good.. Just felt like a giant promo video for M night's daughter's music career. Her acting was pretty bad. Josh Hartnett was the only half decent thing about that movie.

Yeah, Chime is good. It's from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, if you haven't seen Cure, I'd highly recommend that one as well.

I think most people were pretty low on Trap. I thought it was a really fun, campy thriller. I legitimately think M Night is an excellent director and if you can roll with some of the silly and ridiculous moments and you know what you're getting with his dialogue, the movie is a blast

[JDR720]

I've been on my yearly movie binge these past few days.

Watched all the Scream movies, the Terrrifier movies, the Alien/Predator movies, and a few more.

[Braggins]

Anyone like Korean movies? I absolutely love a ton of Korean movies. they are so dark. I had made a list for my nephew who was recently getting into watching some Korea movies. this was ranking of my favorite Korean movies of all time.

parasite
i saw the devil
train to busan
handmaiden
chaser
burning
okja
the man from nowhere
old boy
the host
memories of murder
the wailing
beast grasping at straws
sympathy for mr. vengeance
snowpiercer
decision to leave
mother
broker
space sweepers
ballerina
the call
unlocked
lady vengeance
thirst
forgotten
kill boksoon
night in paradise
howling
barking dogs never bite
#alive
the good, bad and ugly
villaness

Big fan of Bong Joon-ho. Snowpiercer is one of my favorite films Ive seen in the last five years. I thought Memories of Murder was basically a much better version of Zodiac (which I always thought was really overrated). I watched The Wailing not too long ago and thought that was excellent (the final scene!). Of course was a fan of the Park Chan-Wook stuff from back in the day. I feel like all the Korean stuff Ive watched has been consistently very good.

my 2022 list

Barbarian

I just rewatched this yesterday. So good.

You should check out Mandy

[Braggins]

Yeah, Chime is good. It's from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, if you haven't seen Cure, I'd highly recommend that one as well.

I fully endorse the Cure recommendation as well. I haven't heard of Chime. I'll have to check it out.

[KembaWalker]

This was everything we saw in theater only, no streaming for 23 and 24. No idea when the cutoff is for 23 or even when I saw most of these in 23

Very impressive to see all of those in theaters. During the pandemic I dipped a toe into home theater stuff and by now we have a pretty sweet setup. Wife and I still try to catch more "popcorny" movies on the big screen (or imax sized stuff like Oppenheimer). We used to have a Friday routine of catching whatever movie was playing after our workouts (theater and gym both at the mall), but had that routine altered when the gym closed after someone was assassinated in it.

How was the Dungeons and Dragons movie? Trailers looked funny.

Probably was great if you’re into the games/lore. I still enjoyed it anyway, I’m also a Michelle Rodriguez stan

My dream is to one day pull the trigger on buying and installing a really sick projector and sound system because we have a pretty much bare 25’x12’ rectangle wall in the living room that I could probably turn into basically a movie theater at home but I’m never 100% certain I like where I live enough to embark on that kind of home project

[Walt Cronkite]

late '23 and '24 movies i watched last year, in order. out of 5 stars - nothing higher than 4 stars last year for me. here's everythng i had ranked higher than 3 stars. dune 2 not included, so hold your outrage.

You should be using column B to put the star rating in, then sorting by alphabetical order and using the filter function when needing to sort by rating.

Your lack of Excel formatting concerns me

after all the movie talk, read this with James Earl Jones' voice in my head.

[Robot Rock]

Three best Hornets games you've ever seen in person. Go.

[Robot Rock]

Triangle of Sadness

I really enjoyed triangle of sadness.

Phil Jackson, if he ever coached the Hornets.

[KembaWalker]

Three best Hornets games you've ever seen in person. Go.

Don’t even remember who we were playing but I got tickets through work to sit in one of the royal boxes, look over and MJ was sitting in the box next to me 10’ away. This was during the Mully era when he was avoiding the bench and he was clearly very frustrated. Was cool to see him up close, and the duck confit from the buffet wasn’t bad either

Got to see a game against the Rockets when Yao iced the game on us with one of his two(?) career 3 pointers. This one was crazy to me because I’ve never seen so many Chinese people in one place in Charlotte, it was almost the entire arena.

Nothing sticks out to me otherwise as far as specific games but just getting to see different legends up close. LeBron and Shaq, Boston big 3, meeting Ladycat Jordan all were pretty memorable

[HornetJail]

Kemba's 52 vs Utah on MLK day

first ever Bobcats win in 2004 - Charlotte/Orlando

one of the CHA/CLE games in 2010 in which Gerald and Jackson beat LeBron

[Robot Rock]

- Hornets/Heat, 2016 East First Round Game 4
- Hornets/Cavs, Dec. 1997 (first game, first win)
- Hornets/Thunder, Oct. 2023 (kid’s first game, first win)

I’ll add Bobcats/Cavs 2006 when we beat LeBron, and a March 2010 Bobcats/Thunder epic comeback as well.

[amcoolio]

Hmm, I got to see the Bobcats Melvin Ely airball/Gerald Wallace put back dunk to win

The Kobe fouling out but scoring 50 points in triple overtime game and the Bobcats won

And I had courtside seats in the old era once (like actually on the court, I think the owner of Chetola gave them to us and my dad was the exec chef at the time) and it was a Pacers game with Reggie Miller and all I can remember was how huge Rik Smits was... I was like 10 or younger