A new week of movies and lots of time to catch up on things – which doesn’t always happen since there’s so much binge-worthy material out there that draws me in. You’d think the two-hour experience would be the draw for a film but I keep finding myself wanting to be pulled into an eight to ten-hour drama so that I can immerse myself in that more than anything else.
One film that I did take in is something that I haven’t actually finished. I’m a big fan of the Coen Brothers and their approach to the change in filmmaking as studios become even more franchise-driven had them work their Western anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs with the Netflix approach. I’ve watched just over half of the installments so far and am definitely enjoying them, though the first really is unlike the rest. The stories aren’t fantastic or anything but I really enjoy the cast and the kind of slow but contained approach to it all. Of course, there’s just so much to enjoy with the scenery from the on-location pieces that it’s enjoyed simply for that.
Another Netflix film I check out is the very fun little French piece from Fred Cavaye with Nothing to Hide, which was released in 2017 as Le Jeu in France. The cast is fantastic with a nice international approach beyond French actors with some from Canada and Argentina and it delves into the kind of “black box” lives that people lead with their phones being a secret place until a blow-up happens. With a group getting together for a dinner and a game being played with all their phones as a lunar eclipse happens, there’s just revelation after revelation happening and it builds wonderfully.
While I didn’t make it to the theater I did have some background films to watch during the week while writing. This week saw me watching The Fate of the Furious for some fast action fun while I also managed to check out Happy Feet for the first time, something I avoided during that time when my kids were watching it non-stop over and over. We recently got into both The Martian and Ant-Man and the Wasp but I also got to have some silly fun with the Melissa McCarthy Spy film.
Cheap pickups this week has me starting to catch up on some summer films I missed, such as getting the iTunes editions of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again and The Spy Who Dumped Me to check out. The Black Friday weekend also drew me into some really cheap Blu-ray pickups, in the $5 range or less, with Ready Player One and Murder on the Orient Express alongside the silly stupid comedy Why Him? that I enjoy and I finally nabbed Justice League for $6. And even that felt like I was paying too much.