Pumpkin Person rating: 8.5 out of 10
I love movies about a pair of upper middle class couples in their 30s isolated in remote, beautiful cozy location. I started watching this movie with the sister of my mother’s friend. The sister went to bed early, saying the film was “too slow”.
But I love slow movies. I love horror films but I’ve realized it’s not the horror part I love about them. I love all the parts leading up to the horror. The long drive to the secluded location. The excitement of the characters about the fun weekend they have to look forward to. The scenes where the characters step out on the deck overlooking a cliff, overlooking an ocean and say “isn’t it beautiful?”
Usually the horror starts the night the characters get to the location, but in this film, they apparently arrived on a Friday afternoon, and the horror didn’t start until Saturday night so they had time to go for a walk on the isolated beach, get drunk, make out in the jacuzzi, go for a hike etc.
The film is about two white brothers and their girlfriends (wives?). One brother has a high IQ and works in an academic profession while the other brother had spent time in jail for fighting and lacks general knowledge (implies humans were alive near dinosaur times). But the lower IQ brother has a high IQ Middle Eastern girlfriend who also happens to be the high IQ brother’s work partner. The low IQ brother fears his high IQ wife might leave him for a smarter guy, but he never suspects that smarter guy might be his own brother.
When the Middle Eastern girlfriends tries to rent their vacation destination she is declined, only to find her lower IQ white boyfriend is able to rent it an hour later raising questions about racism, but that’s the least of their problems as they discover someone is videotaping their showers and trying to kill them.
This film was directed and co-written by Dave Franco (the younger brother of James Franco) who cast his wife as the high IQ brother’s wife. Well worth watching on Amazon Prime.
Pumpkin Person 
What does everyone think the all-time best acting performance in a film is?
De Niro as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull stands out to me, but I’m curious what others think.
Christian Bale and Leo DiCaprio are my all-time favorite actors. Romeo+Juliet with Leo is excellent. I think best acting performance imo goes to Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight or something of that nature!
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote. Also Kevin Spacey pulling off a heterosexual ephebophile in American Beauty definitely took major skill. Joaquin Phoenix is extremely impressive to me. He and Christian Bale are a couple of the handful of “handsome” actors that I think could’ve still made it big if they were homely, whereas Brad Pitt probably wouldn’t have even been cast as an understudy in a school play.
In no particular order:
Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady
sissy spacek in Carrie
Piper Laurie in Carrie
Joaquin Phoenix in The Joker,
Kevin Spacey in American Beauty
Annette Bening in American Beauty
Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween (1978)
Daniel Harris in Halloween IV
Larry Hagman in Dallas (TV series)
Betsy Palmer in Friday the 13th (1980)
Thandie Newton in Beloved
donald pleasence in Halloween V
Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert in The Sweet Hereafter
Oprah in The Color Purple
Oprah in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
PP, Ian Holm in The Sweet Hereafter is a great choice. Laurie in Carrie too, but more obvious.
peewee herman in Peewee’s Big Adventure obviously.
oprah does have the ugliest performance.
sad.
deniro just plays deniro. how do you distinguish between good acting and a good script, part? it’s impossible. acting in film is mostly just what you look like and what you sound like. acting per se has little to do with it. but bad acting is a thing.
Yes, that distinction is impossible to make. A great on-screen performance requires great screenwriting, and actors don’t always have to change much to be great.
It’s the same with music. Rocket Man is Elton John’s greatest achievement even though he didn’t write it and it was easy for him to pull off.
Still, this is pretty great:
I guess if someone gives two great performances as very different characters, then they are a good actors.
Isabelle Huppert in The Pianist. Tilda Swinton in Julia.
I think PP would like this one, too. I enjoyed it when I saw it in theaters like 7 years ago.
Saw it a few years ago. Very creepy.
Love Jason Bateman. Definitely a watchable movie.
PP, have you watched Black Mirror yet? I highly recommend “White Christmas” and “Playtest.” Those episodes definitely seem up your alley.
No never watched it. I’ll have to check those out.
“But I love slow movies. I love horror films but I’ve realized it’s not the horror part I love about them. I love all the parts leading up to the horror. The long drive to the secluded location. The excitement of the characters about the fun weekend they have to look forward to. The scenes where the characters step out on the deck overlooking a cliff, overlooking an ocean and say “isn’t it beautiful?””
This guy watches porn for the cuddling and pillow talk
PP the type of guy to turn his tv down when his cat falls asleep
thank you pp
Lol
I want my cat to wake up. He died last month 😦
Teffec, could you please send me the answer to the 2:35 question on the TAVIS? I’ve tried several ideas, but none of them work, and I’m extra frustrated now knowing that many readers apparently solved it
Don’t be frustrated. I had assumed the response summary listed the number of people who solved the item when it’s more likely that it lists just the number who attempted it.
When I manually looked at the first ten test submissions, no one had solved 2:35.
I don’t have your email, but I consent to PP sending you the answer key.
See the Contact page on my blog for my e-mail
Is there a way for you to see how many solved an item, and what their average score over the other 23 questions was, without having to manually check every submission?
no
i was able to find this website that is close in semblance to the actual Weschler vocabulary test:
https://wais-iv-vocabulary-c443c8.netlify.app
you have to copy-paste the link for it to go through! its a vocabulary test composed of finding the antonym of a given word!
i ended up with a raw score of 15 and a scaled score of 10!
do you know what this would equate to Pumpkin?
It’s modeled after the Wechsler so scaled score 10 = 50 percentile = IQ 100.
not very surprising. the scaled score reflects the age demographic that suits you! for example i had to put in 26 so the scaled score reflects what the norms for 26 year olds are.
very endearing test. antonyms measure the strength of ones vocabulary for sure! pretty satisfying to learn that even in a heat-of-the-moment test-taking scenario ill have an average IQ for vocabulary at the very least!
31/31, which supposedly corresponds to the 99.99th percentile for people in their mid-twenties
I scored 27, scaled score 18
Interesting test. I scored 23, scale score 14.