Seen Any Good Movies Lately?

[oldmom4896]

Great interview with Turturro (the pickpocket)

John Turturro is The Only Living Legend in Park Slope

[Data10]

@ClassicMom98

We saw Backrooms in the theater last night. If I could have given it 0 stars, I would have. H said he liked it quite a bit. There’s was nothing in it for me. It’s very whacked out - and that’s putting it mildly. They didn’t really describe what in the blank the whole thing was all about. Or if they did, it was a very poor job of an explanation. Plus, all of the scenes shot like a bad quality go pro left me nauseous. Blech.

Backrooms was released on HBO Max recently. I watched it last night and enjoyed it.

The “bad quality” cinematography is an intentional choice to make the Backrooms look ordinary, flat, and uninteresting like typical office space; which makes the differences from what is expected in an ordinary office space stand out. It’s similar to analog horror.

The lack of explanation is a fair criticism. I would have appreciated more world building, more explanation of how the Backrooms work and related rules, as well as a better explanation of what the Backrooms are and related origin. However, the lack of understanding makes the exploration of the Backrooms more interesting. I want to learn about the world and explore, just as the characters do.

I also like this type of exploration to unique world horror in other media. For example, I especially liked The Left Right Game podcast, which like Backrooms is an adaptation of a short Internet story, and involves a group exploring another world/dimension that appears to be a different version of our own.

I don’t think Backrooms is a great movie in a technical sense. Nevertheless, I was captivated throughout the movie and truly wanted to see what happened next. The characters often made poor and unrealistic decisions, but those decisions were also often what I wanted them to do. For example, I was rooting for the psychologist to go in to and explore the Backrooms, rather than contact someone else or get help. I was not a fan of the movie making attempts of deeper meaning, and the Backrooms representing different psychological or life concepts. These didn’t work well, but also didn’t take away much from my experience watching the movie.

[Colorado_mom]

I just finished rereading Hamnet for book club. We are planning to watch the movie tonight (Netflix), in prep for the book club discussion tomorrow. (I also need to brush up on Shakespeare / Hamlet plot.)

[mathmom]

Very much enjoyed Sense and Sensibility. The male leads aren’t as cute as Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, but did a good job. I thought all the women were excellent including the youngest sister. I liked how everyone out in the country actually got dirty when walking around in the mud eating blackberries!