When asked for his opinion on movies, the question regularly comes up whether or not a movie Josh is recommending to someone is "worth" seeing on the big screen. The question, as he sees it, is one of spectacle. So, to answer it, he has taken another look at "The Walk," which definitely wowed him on the big screen.
The "Mission: Impossible" movie franchise is almost 20 years old. Who would have guessed that it would still be achieving creative success at this point... and without recasting its lead actor. And what about Marvel's "Ant-Man," which is really about a guy who can push a button that is attached to a magic suit someone else gave him? Another relatively improbably success.
Josh praises both these achievements in this minisode.
Different actors approach roles differently. That should be no surprise. What is surprising, and endlessly fascinating, is just how some actors go about this preparation. On this episode, actor Gene Jones tells his method, let's us in on his secrets. This all stems from a discussion of his latest film, "Dementia," which offers a look at one elderly man's struggles in the present due to his past.
The holidays are a time for family. They are also a time for film going. But, a trip to "The Good Dinosaur" this weekend with his family left Josh disheartened. It was not all that he hoped it would be. There was but one opportunity left to him when he returned home -- watch "Minions."
One of the things Josh truly dislikes is the term "guilty pleasure." If you like something, stand up and shout it as loud as you possibly can. It doesn't matter if it's the worst sort of reality show or the dumbest sort of movie. It's not wrong.
Take "Bad Boys" and "Bad Boys II" as an example. Josh doesn't call them a guilty pleasure, instead he basks in his love of Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett.
It isn't wrong to want to sit down and watch a movie that is going to do nothing but provide a sort of comforting escapism, especially after a weekend full of awful news reports. We don't advocate permanently burying your head in the sand and avoiding the world at large, but taking a break isn't the worst thing you could do.
For Josh, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" provided just that sort of escape this past weekend.
Do forgive Josh if he sounds a little like he's suffering from a cold with this minisode, it's only because he's suffering from a cold.
The important thing to note is not the cold, but rather the character behind it. Yes, we're still on character this week as we look at "Before we go" and "The End of the Tour." The films are strikingly similar in the fact that they are mostly just two people talking to each other, but who those people are and how they interact is what makes one of the movies enjoyable and one of them not.
On today's minisode we look at two different Luc Besson movies, "The Professional" and "The Fifth Element." Even if they both feature Gary Oldman, these are completely different movies. The important thing to note though is that even if they are different, they both work for the same reason -- a focus on creating interesting characters.
Daniel Junge has an Oscar win and another nomination. Today, he stops by "Lass is More" to discuss his latest documentary, "A Lego Brickumentary." We also talk "Inside Out" and "Aladdin."
The key here with all these things is that while they may be primarily intended for kids, they're all great for adults as well. You'll find that the same is true for all the best kids' stuff.
Josh has said many a time that he does not like horror, but is he lying? On today's minisode, Josh revisits the topic and offers three new-to-Blu-ray offerings which he highly recommends for your Halloween festivities. They're fun, they're amusing, and they're pretty much guaranteed to not keep most folks awake all night in sheer terror, and it's really this last one that Josh would say is most important.
Did one of these movies postulate its own failure and the other's success? As they both arrive on Blu-ray and DVD, "Lass is More" looks at the films, their messages, their ability to predict the future, and just what it is that we can learn from them.
"Dope" and "Pixels" are both now out on blu-ray and I have problems with both movies. Josh thinks one is great for nearly the entire run and the other goes very far off the rails very early on. The question for both is whether there is a single identifiable moment where the error occurs, something people can point to and say, "see, it's right here. This is what is going to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth after the credits run." Josh is betting there is and is here to tell you all about it.
Lass is More hit New York Comic-Con this past weekend and got the opportunity to sit down with the voices of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Wile E. Coyote. Hear what they, along with producer Gary Hartle, had to tell us about the new show, "Wabbit - A Looney Tunes Production" which is airing on Boomerang and Cartoon Network.
Josh will be the first person to tell you that he's not down with movies where things go bump in the night. They scare him, and he's not of the opinion that losing a night's sleep thinking you're going to be murdered by some deranged machete-wielding maniac is fun.
What Josh does like are monster movies. Here are three selections for this October, one good, one really at best mediocre but part of a good franchise, and one not good but with a wonderful monster. Today, we discuss "Escobar: Paradise Lost," "Tremors 5: Bloodlines," and "Bram Stoker's Dracula."
Tracey Birdsall has had a long career in Hollywood, and she stops by Lass is More to tell us all about it. What kinds of movies does she like? Why does she produce? What attracts her to a part? Will she ever direct? She answers all these questions and more.
Not every biopic does a great job of putting us inside a character, nor of appropriately selecting what portions of someone's life are worth telling and what can be left out. "Love & Mercy," however, is spectacular at both these things, offering an interesting way to give us the story and some wonderful acting.
For years, Josh has tried to explain what makes him like movies as much as he does. He has done this more successfully and less successfully, but it's never been quite right. Maybe though the new Blu-ray releases of "Zathura," "Jumanji," and "The Indian in the Cupboard" can help him make it happen.
One shouldn't, necessarily, attempt to apply logic to a "Fast & Furious" movie, but why would we ever let that stop us? If they can still be furious after all these years, we can look for logic flaws, and that's just what we do over the course of these five minutes.
Guess what? We find them, but maybe not where you think (okay, there too).
Khalil Sullins has written and directed a "hard" sci-fi movie about telepathy and the efforts of two young men working in a garage to read human thoughts. Just how far-fetched is it? Just how close may we be to knowing the innermost ruminations of another person? Sullins is here to discuss.
This week, Josh discusses "Citizenfour" and the reasons it just doesn't work for him. No, he understands why it's probably important now and maybe insanely important in another 50 or 100 years, but being important and being good filmmaking aren't really the same thing.
Disney has released a great new set of animated shorts. It offers up a dozen pieces, 11 of which I truly enjoy and watching the whole thing on a Saturday morning on the sofa with my kids is about as good as nostalgia can get.
Having a bunch of interesting things to say does not necessarily mean that you're going to make an interesting movie. The way you opt to say them--or not say them--is hugely important. The Tom Hardy movie "Child 44" fails because it can't be bothered with choosing what to prune back and what to keep. It is, in the simplest terms, a story told just as my son would tell it.
Austin Stark is the writer-director of "The Runner," Nicolas Cage's latest film. In the movie, the actor plays a politician who truly believes in doing the right thing for his community and not getting corrupted by the system, but who can't get out of his own way.
Lass is More talks to Stark about how his own world views influence the film, why he chose a real-world disaster as the backdrop for the movie, and a whole lot more.
Is it an Australian story? Is it one of universal appeal? What makes Kim Farrant's first narrative feature film special? Certainly, it has a good cast, one led by Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving, and Joseph Fiennes. It also offers up a tale of parents whose children go missing and that is a horror we can all imagine.
What else? Kim Farrant tells all in our latest episode.
This week's minisode finds Josh struggling with writer's block and watching Wim Wenders' documentary about photographer Sebastio Salgado. Josh does, somehow, find the words to tell you what he thinks of the movie and thinks of the photographer's work and they are quite different. But, what of his own words for his writing? Will those come back?