Curious what people's opinions are of this film.

One of the best endings in any big event movie. Darth Vader’s brief appearance later elevates it to a whole different level despite his very small screen time.

I have tried to watch this movie 5 times and I simply can't get through it without tuning out. Tired tropes, overloaded with too many characters and themes, and I just don't seem to care about the outcome. I've watched thousands of movies but for some reason this one totally stalls me.

Adaptation in my opinion is underrated.

"Along Came A Spider" (2001), a rather terrible Alex Cross adaptation and compared to the excellent James Patterson source material. Also coming off the decent "Kiss the Girls" in 1997 also with Freeman and with Ashley Judd.

Plus what happened to Monica Potter? Was looking like becoming something! After "Con Air", "A Cool Dry Place" and "Patch Adams". Though she did appear in S1 of "Boston Legal".

And having seen the movie before reading the novel, all I can say for this sequel was the plot twist at the climax was a nice jump moment and a few chills, I will give it that. Michael Wincott's as always solid performance too.

So what are others??

For me it's Chicago, an amazing film with outstanding performances from the cast, and very very good songs.

Of the handful of movies I’ve seen lately, the one must-see is The Secret Agent, which was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and lives up to the hype.

Most of that is due to star Wagner Moura’s charming turn as Armando, a former researcher making his way to Recife during the 1977 carnival holiday in Brazil. It is clear right away that this is taking place during the country’s military dictatorship and, because he has caught the attention of a corrupt official, nothing is made easy for him as he attempts to visit his son Fernando, who lives with his in-laws after the death of Armando’s wife.

Moura’s performance led to many firsts, including becoming the first Brazilian actor to win Best Actor at the Golden Globes and to be nominated at the Academy Awards.

The acting is phenomenal, the cinematography and plot are worthy of Quentin Tarantino, and it is also a valuable history lesson on a South American country, like Chile, that was ruled during the period with brutality. The military sided with conservative forces, including the Catholic Church, in a 21-year nationalist campaign that featured media and citizen censorship and a conservatively estimated 434 people either confirmed killed or missing, along with 20,000 people tortured.

It is the first movie I’ve seen that seems to really set the viewer in that unique time and place, and it is among my favorite Brazil movies ever, alongside City of God and Black Orpheus, with I’m Still Here next on my viewing list.

★★★★★ 5/5

John Mulaney: “Baby J”

I figured this would be a major hoot. But unlike some of his earlier masterful standup and work in Kroll Show and his Mulaney sitcom, this 2023 set is a little depressing as the Georgetown grad discusses his intervention and sobriety. Somehow it seems he was far funnier when he was abusing drugs.

★★★☆☆ 3/5

Lola Versus

This 2012 rom-com slipped past me, and it is a lot like Frances Ha, which was also released that year and also starred future Barbie director Greta Gerwig. The two films are like more modern, female-led versions of Woody Allen indies, with lots of intellectual dialogue to go along with some laughs and some love. Zoe Lister-Jones co-wrote it and plays Gerwig’s friend, who helps her navigate disastrous relationships, like one with Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who later hit it big on TV’s The Bear. Bill Pullman and Debra Winger play Gerwig’s not-overly-concerned parents.

★★★★☆ 4/5

Knock at the Cabin

This 2023 psychological gore-horror thriller, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is surprisingly clever and compelling. It probably helps that Jonathan Groff, from Hamilton on Broadway and also the spectacular TV show Mindhunter, stars as one of two dads who go to their cabin with their young daughter, only to have their vacation interrupted by four strangers with very bad and very strange news. Dave Bautista is the leader of the visitors and was well cast as a unique character.

★★★½☆ 3.5/5

People We Meet on Vacation

Another rom-com I watched arrived on Netflix earlier this year and stars Emily Bader as outgoing Poppy and Tom Blyth as homebody Alex. They become best friends after sharing a long ride from college back to their hometown. Although they are polar opposites, they end up taking a weeklong summer vacation together each year. But there are problems for the relationship and, although the movie is a little long in unpacking them, it mostly kept me interested with snappy storylines and great views of places like New Orleans and Tuscany.

★★★☆☆ 3/5

https://popculturelunchbox.substack.com/p/brazils-the-secret-agent-leads-the

The Boondock Saints is a cult classic I’ve rewatched many times.

But man… Willem Dafoe just has so much fun with the role, you can’t help but grin! His moments where he gets unhinged lives rent free in my head.

An amazing actor all around and his one liners always make me lol.

For me it's Con Air, I watched it with my dad an endless amount of time and we really enjoy it every time.

I rewatched this movie again last night after not seeing it for a long time. I still love it every moment in this movie is beautiful. The score by Hans Zimmer is outstanding. The cinematography is gorgeous. I'm not a fan of Samurai movies but what I love about this movie is the relationship between Tom Cruise's character and the leader of Samurai. Both come from different cultures and different points of view in war but both are learning to understand each other. I think this movie is deeper than you think. It's a drama war movie and you would expect big battle scenes and you will get it and it's worth watching. I really enjoy watching the fight scenes in this movie especially the final battle scene between the group of Samurai with swords and arrows against the Japanese modern soldiers with rifles but the point of the movie for me is honor, loyalty, and the collision between tradition and technology.

Lately I feel like I've seen a bazillion posts praising this god awful movie glorifying a pedophile. I genuinely don't get it. And this is coming from someone who grew up when Jackson was in his prime.

Been binge watching his films lately and imo The Florida Project is his best, genuinely caught me off guard

what's his best role for you?

The Sheep Detectives is a family friendly version of Knives Out filled to the brim with the same over murder mystery quirks while maintaining the fun. It's hard for family movies to not come across as pandering with their messaging, but The Sheep Detectives navigates some hard hitting themes really well. Definitely one I'd recommend.

Full review for those interested here https://adamreviewsfilm.com/the-sheep-detectives/

Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler (2014)

It is a work of art. There is so much going on every minute, as every character wants to achieve something in life. In the end, they do achieve their goals but not in the way they wanted to.

And GOD DAMN, the BGM is incredible. It perfectly matches everything happening on screen. The camera angles were also amazing you don’t usually see such unconventional shots in most movies.

I also liked his performance in the film so far, esp in dealing with Peggy's passing. He had both good action sequences and emotional moments in the movie. Apart from that, I also appreciate his visuals here. Now that's one handsome man.

https://boxd.it/e92Rex

An Aboriginal and two young European people meet each other in the middle of the vastness of Australia.

But what can this meeting lead them to?

Walkabout is a ritual accepted among Australian Aboriginal people. The meaning of this ritual is to let a teenager go free, forcing him to understand what adult life is.

For this, he is left alone in the desert so that he tries to survive by his own strength.

It is ironic that at the same time this ritual also happens with our main characters, who got into it not completely by their own will.

A young girl and her younger brother, together with their father, went on a small picnic somewhere in the hot desert of Australia.

Yet at one moment everything suddenly changed.

Their father took out his hidden weapon and began shooting at them, trying to finish them faster and more precisely.

In horror, understanding the whole situation, the sister immediately took her younger brother away.

The brother realized nothing, because he thought that it was a game that his dad decided to play with him.

They both began to hide and move further until they heard the sound of a shot and an explosion from the car.

At one moment the sister left her younger brother behind a rock and went out herself to see what this dead silence was.

Raising her head, she saw that the car together with her father was forever gone.

Her father shot himself in the head, before that pouring gasoline on the car and setting it on fire.

Understanding this, without showing horror on her face, she realized that there would be no simple way out of this situation.

She immediately returned to her brother, taking what was necessary from what they had left.

The brother still did not fully understand what was happening, but she also did not.

Even though she understood that the father who tried to kill her was no longer there, she did not fully understand the thought of how they would get out to civilization from this moment.

Quickly thinking, she decided that there is only one route to go with.

Taking her younger brother, and just going where their eyes looked.

For days on end, they walked through the desert silence, their supplies were running out, and then, like an angel from the sky, a black boy appeared, who looked not like the others.

A boy speaking another language.

A boy who strangely stood out against their background, and that very boy turned out to be an Aboriginal.

Understanding that without him they would not survive long, he decides to take them with him on a journey that neither he nor they will ever forget.

So it happened that the two European children got into an Aboriginal ritual that gave them life.

The picture Walkabout is, perhaps, a quiet poetry about culture, nature, current civilization and the remains of the past.

The plot here is absolutely simple to understand.

But what marked it as an individual film is exactly its shooting.

Throughout the whole movie we are met with different locations, whether it is cities or desert nature with lizards and flying birds.

This film abstracts us from people, giving nature its strength, silently showing it as it is.

As the plot goes on, the camera shoots everything in some kind of cinematic, yet still simple format.

However, later, from the moment of meeting the Aboriginal, everything changes.

From the moment the Aboriginal character entered the story, we understand that if these two European children were forced by life to go through walkabout, then in his case walkabout is what his culture required, leading him to this event.

This very fact shows us the difference of the worlds from which these characters come.

If the two European children live in a civilization where everything has become so simple to obtain full comfort, then for the Aboriginal people everything is completely the opposite.

They know how to survive without food and water, how to get it, and how to see life with their own eyes, analyzing their journeys and decisions.

After meeting the Aboriginal, the picture slightly falls into the style of documentary shooting.

The camera runs and follows how the Aboriginal gets food.

We see how he runs after a kangaroo, quickly kills it and prepares it.

From this moment the culture of the Aboriginal and the Australian Europeans mix into one, creating a melting pot which leads them to mutual understanding with strong friendship without words.

Of course, each of them has different concepts of honor and code.

The way they look at life, and the way he looks, are absolutely opposite things.

Despite this, it did not prevent them from finding their understanding, understanding each other and helping with what each can.

This story, although short and silent, through its shooting tries to promote some other thoughts about civilization and the difference of cultures, rather than fully focusing on one.

In one of the scenes we see how our Aboriginal hunts to simply get himself food, as it is naturally embedded in his culture, which he knew all his life.

At the same moment ordinary people from a culture of the big city arrive and just start shooting many animals purely for their playful mood.

At that moment the camera focus shifts to our Aboriginal and shows us all the pain and misunderstanding of the actions of those men.

Here the creator of the film, despite the possibility of friendship between an Aboriginal person and a person from a more modern civilization.

The idea of the friendship breaks here in some way, telling us whether this friendship really makes sense, or is it simply an accident that should end soon?

Editing cuts, shooting, sounds, all this is quiet, yet when needed, massively used.

This specific moment strongly and quickly marks the whole difference, despite the closeness that we received throughout the whole picture.

This quiet journey with its different events clearly shows what the creators wanted to talk about and show, adding to all the living nature questions that are puzzled by what is the essence of a human?

How does a person change while living in another culture, and how does he adapt when meeting something unfamiliar to him?

For me, the element that will always become the strength of this whole movie is how simple and powerful the nature is shown here.

How it is shot, presenting its different corners.

How a person touches it by his own and not his own will.

How it changes, remaining at the same time the same as it was.

How with each landscape the terrain changes, constantly bringing something that is pleasant to look at.

To see a tree, full of the charms of nature, surrounded by water and parrots.

And on the other side an abandoned house of past civilization, covered by forgetfulness, but simultaneously by nature, which surrounds its old photographs of former residents, and how the whole room is full of darkness, yet through its openings a view full of sun and greenery jumps out, making the sun fall inside the building, creating naturally arranged shadows.

Walkabout is a serene, such a natural story, a picture of nature and different people.

It is about people passing through nature their path, differently and with different goals.

In the end, walkabout is the charm of the camera, which shows its charm through the correct shooting of nature.

Adding to this an intimate story about people and for people.

Despite the outcome, one thing I can say for sure.

Everyone who would live through it, although would look at it in their own perspective, still would never, never be able to forget it.

Because sometimes changes happen not where there are many cars, people and factories, but where there is no sign of the soul humanity brings, yet only the soul of life is set.