recommending movies – starting w/ City of Lies

This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 1 week ago by Zooey.

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April 3, 2025 at 7:19 pm #155769

wv
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2018 film starring Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker.

I’d never heard of it. Was never really promoted for various reasons you could read about on wikipedia. Its about the murder of Biggie Smalls in Los Angeles. The murder was never officially solved, but there’s reasons to believe off-duty LA Police officers had a hand in it.

Anyway, i was expecting absolutely nothing from it. Figured i’d watch for ten minutes and then toss the dvd. But it was interesting. Based on a book, that addresses the LA PD’s relationship with Death Row records and the Gangs that are part of that scene.

Johnny Depp plays the kind of role I’ve never seen him play. Very low key.

w
v

April 4, 2025 at 11:41 am #155771

joemad
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need a “good movie” thread…. i’ll need to check this out.

So much programming and rarely promoted good movies out there, that I just don’t know what to watch.

April 4, 2025 at 5:05 pm #155777

Zooey
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I watch so little TV/Movies that I never have much to say, or when I get around to seeing it and saying something, I find that there was a thread about it two years earlier.

But… I did watch Emilia Perez on Netflix. I knew nothing other than that it received many AA nominations. I liked it a lot. It felt fresh and original. There were several times that the plot surprised me (I did not see that coming), and the performances were interesting. Bill Maher claims that the movie was a victim of Woke. The trans actor who played the lead apparently was guilty of some racist tweets some years ago, and Maher thinks that’s why she didn’t win, and the whole movie was consequently punished. Since I’ve seen none of the other nominated films, I have no idea, but I do know I dislike Bill Maher.

The other thing I watched…and just finished recently…was “The Fall of the House of Usher,” an 8-part series that I also liked a lot. It had that slick Hollywood feel to it, and there weren’t a lot of surprises (well… it draws from Poe’s work, and the episodes are titled after Poe’s stuff, so you can anticipate where the story is headed), but it managed to make relevant social commentary, especially the final episode which has some blistering material on corporatism, and even takes shots at current political situation. There are also some fine Easter Eggs for Poe fans, “I’m having Richard Parker for dinner.”

That’s my report for 2025.
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