Sunday
Aug132017
Podcast: Detroit, Girls Trip, Atomic Blonde, Landline
Sunday, August 13, 2017 at 1:38PM 
Nathaniel and Nick discuss six new films. No spoilers.
Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Why you should see A Ghost Story & Lady Macbeth
04:00 Kathryn Bigelow stumbles with Detroit (what we hope she does next)
16:40 Atomic Blonde is a blast, a true feat of direction and Charlize Theron-ness
29:40 Girls Trip is crazy well-acted fun
37:00 Landline is a let-down
38:30 Recommendations from 1963 for the helluva it
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?
Reader Comments (14)
LOL the LADY MACBETH comment was me. I think it's a substantial movie, but there was something to it that just felt like rubbing my face in shit for 90 minutes. The way the lead abuses and uses the black characters for her own whims is *the point* but it was just a deeply uncomfortable sit despite being really solid. I totally agree that THE BEGUILED is the same kind of character, but that film had far more interesting layers to it
I was STUNNED by Lady Macbeth, mostly for how it gets you to sympathize with this character and then S-L-O-W-L-Y twists the knife, forcing you to question both the character and your reactions to her every single moment. Plus, it's shockingly funny and just tight as a drum; there is ZERO fat on it. Easily the leanest, meanest movie I've seen in quite some time.
And yes, there has got to be a way to get people to go see Atomic Blonde; I don't understand why it's not a bigger hit.
Ugh! I hated atomic Blonde! Empty junk with a couple of nicely shot sequences but that was it.
I though Charlize was in danger of entering Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider territory in her performance.
Looking forward to hearing the discussion!
A fun film from 1963 that no-one ever seems to know about is THE PRIZE. A great Paul Newman spy film written by Ernest Lehmann (and borrowing many sequences from North By Northwest). Even features a long segment with Paul Newman in a towel at a nudist colony worth the price of admission alone!
@Adam: Thanks for the recommendation!
@Chris and @Denny: Surely the three of us together will get Nathaniel into the theater. Well, the three of us and Cosmo.
"Landline" is a weird one. By the end I thought it was productively messy and liked it more than not, but it really isn't about much of anything. Slate is charming but completely alien - her character's mania and reaction shots get the biggest laughs but make zero sense. And the 90's references are so thick that 15 minutes in, I got a Bingo.
...and yet, they were nothing but superficial references. The story wasn't in any way specific to being set in the 90s or given any particular nuance by that context. And the sisters often used verbal idioms that I don't really remember hearing till much later, so it didn't even feel consistent to me. But yes, I see, that IS a very old diskette, etc.
Nick - Maybe the script started with the Helen Hunt riff, and they reverse engineered the whole movie from there?
"I though Charlize was in danger of entering Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider territory in her performance."
Um...does that make anybody else want to see the movie more? Just me? Cool.
@Nathaniel R
Have you seen Set It Off (1996)?
I have wanted to get to Atomic Blonde, but I haven't seen it because there's been too much else in theaters. I'm sure I would have seen it if it were released earlier in the summer, which felt like a dead zone for me.
And people should absolutely see A Ghost Story! My favorite of the year so far.
/3rtful -- i have not, no.
suzanne -- i will try and make tiime!
thefilmjunkie - to me that's high praise, too.
I encourage you to seek it out immediately.
Nathaniel, you need to see Set It Off.