Author Topic: Write about the last movie you watched (2006-2010)  (Read 5996831 times)

Holly Harry

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21380 on: October 23, 2009, 11:08:50 AM »
Juno

... the truth of the matter, is just that it's a fine, cute movie, with some embarassing moments of dialouge, and some genuinely funny and sweet moments.   If it did nothing and you just stumbled upon it on TV one day, I have a feeling most would feel the same way, and wouldn't plant some flag in the ground.

  (To me Little Miss Sunshine.... have the same problem.  )

Fox Searchlight shoves a movie down your throat until you either have to swallow or regurgitate.

I like "Little Miss Sunshine" even more (mostly because I think it has some darker themes about America under the surface), but yeah, it just can't be a cute, sweet, fine movie, it has to be something more, on either end.
"Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."-Woody Allen.

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21381 on: October 23, 2009, 11:42:01 AM »
What I said was:
I have yet to find anything I didn't like about the film.  

I also said that I couldn't find fault, and by that I meant to reinforce the above statement.  However, this doesn't apply as WTWTA is loaded with content and substance.

I should bookmark this page and return here after eventually seeing Bronson.

Please, do that.  And when you love the film to spite me I'll be sure to file that away as well.  It's not a bad film, its just a very good performance in a middling film.

I don't spite people, they spite me.

CSSCHNEIDER

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21382 on: October 23, 2009, 01:00:17 PM »
Two Lovers
Dir. James Grey

Wow.  I'm a bit overwhelmed.  My Top 10 has been pummeled in the last week, this being the most recent sucker punch.  Again, this is a film that was marketed very strangely.  I avoided it because, at least to me, I got the impression the film was some sort of Love Triangle thriller.  I hate films about jealousy.  Thankfully its not, its just a simple story told well about two people.  Its a bit magical and has the perfect ending.  I saw it coming a mile away, but if it would have deviated at all I would been pissed.  Vinessa Shaw is so beautiful in this.  The second she enters the room I was enamored by her.  And Isabella Rossellini needs to be in more films.  She reminded me a lot of my own mother, its a really understated and sweet performance.  Just see this film.  Please.

Grade A-

Edit:
I apologize for my review.  Its terrible and mumbling, but the film really hit me hard and I still can't rightly put into words my exact feelings.  Just know that I liked it and want everyone to see it.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2009, 01:05:30 PM by CSSCHNEIDER »
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'Noke

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21383 on: October 23, 2009, 01:43:35 PM »
Juno - It's been a while since I've smiled that much while watching a film, and I can't believe I didn't really like this movie the first time around. Sure, some of the dialogue hits odd notes that momentarily took me out of it, but it's still pretty gate. Not to mention Cera and Page's chemistry. It's all a lot of fun, and J.K. Simmons makes being a Dad looking CINECAST!ing awesome.

Wow. You don't see that too often. Most people seem to have lost their love for Juno, not the other way around.

Yep. I need to rewatch this, because it's one of those movies where I haven't actually lost any love for it(except for maybe Cera's performance).
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

Fugee

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21384 on: October 23, 2009, 03:31:55 PM »
Juno - It's been a while since I've smiled that much while watching a film, and I can't believe I didn't really like this movie the first time around. Sure, some of the dialogue hits odd notes that momentarily took me out of it, but it's still pretty gate. Not to mention Cera and Page's chemistry. It's all a lot of fun, and J.K. Simmons makes being a Dad looking CINECAST!ing awesome.

Wow. You don't see that too often. Most people seem to have lost their love for Juno, not the other way around.
I dismissed it as "hipster bullshit" the first time and sort of turned off. I'm pissed at myself for doing it, but... I still don't like the soundtrack.

oldkid

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21385 on: October 23, 2009, 04:04:51 PM »
Special



An enjoyable independent film about a man who may or may not have special powers because of a drug clinical trial.  The acting, for the most part, is wonderful, and I got drawn into the world presented simply.  Available on Netflix instant. 3.5/5

Point Break



Wow.  Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves were polar opposites in the acting arena.  It kept me going all the way to the end, but I kept thinking, “How are they going to fill the rest of the time?” from halfway through on.  Still, cool action.  3/5

The Devil’s Backbone







Somewhere between The Orphanage and Pan’s Labyrinth, this is a masterwork.  But it is more than a creepy ghost story.  It is a deep analogy about the Spanish Civil War, and about the differences in ideologies in a nation in general.  You have the wise, scientist type, the strict security-conscious type, the motherly teaching type, the church (who gives grains of strength) and the populace, who believe in myths that turn out to be more real than any leaders supposed.  Because this movie works so well as both an allegory and as a story about disaster in a boy’s school, this is certainly in the running for “great movie” status.  I personally don’t care for it as well as Pan’s Labyrinth, Del Toro’s more brutal look at the Spanish Civil War (I like mythological fantasies better than ghost stories), but it is still one of the best films about societies ever.  4.5/5
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

flieger

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21386 on: October 23, 2009, 04:15:08 PM »

Vicky Cristina Barcelona, (Woody Allen, 2008)

American tourists doing things on the continent, with some passionate locals. Upper-middle class artsy hijinks ensue.

First of all, I cannot remember Allen putting such an explicit emphasis on youth (well, youngish people) before. The faces and figures of Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), Vicky (Rebecca Hall), Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) and Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) are lingered over by Allen and his cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (Talk To Her, The Others, The Road) in beautifully framed and lit close/medium shots, which gives the film a fresh and glowing look that helps overcome the occasional fussy mannerisms that sometimes (and lately, more often) mar Allen's work. The editing and script are also quite focused. No painful diversions with secondary characters or fanciful subplots. In some respects, this treatment brought to mind the work of Eric Rohmer, with his emphasis on youth, beauty, and lots of talking. I have a great fondness for Rohmer's films, due to his wit, and his ideals of beauty and youth, and so a little of this fondness slipped over into my experience of Allen's film.

What starts out as your typical bedroom farce, with Bardem as the "artist", Johansson as the voracious blonde, and Hall as the uptight bourgeois actually starts to gain some substance in character development and performance. The dialogue and narrative is typical Allen, but instead of going for broadness or caricature, he holds back and lets the characters have a little space to exist and develop on their own. The important point here is that Allen never undercuts any of the characters and their motivations. What they do has motivations based not just on the necessities of the plot (although that is always a necessary pleasure, too), but from the core substance of the characters. Juan Antonio pursues not only women, but anything of beauty art, music, wine. "Life is short, dull, and full of pain." He wants to enjoy everything he can, while he can.
The narrative tone shifts wonderfully with each episode and encounter, going from farce to harmony, from giddiness to sad compromise. Ultimately a pessimist, Allen wrings as much joy, pain and emotion as can be expected from an American adventure on the continent, and then leaves his protagonists a little richer, wiser, and sadder at the choices they make, and are made for them.

To sum up: when you put four gorgeous people in an exotic locale, have them do things to each other in pleasing and not-so-pleasing-but-it-could-have-been-worse ways, add a little rumination on the meaning of life and love, and a lot of Allen-esque upper-middle class artistic-intellectual banter, I will not be overly surprised, but it's not going to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

CSSCHNEIDER

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21387 on: October 23, 2009, 04:31:55 PM »
The International

This is a tight thriller for about 90 minutes.  The last thirty minutes becomes a bit meandering which is too bad.  Features one of the best action sequences of the year, to bad once that's over so is the best of the film.  I was debating between a B+ and an A- at that point, I think I'm going to have to settle for less though since the rest of the film doesn't deliver.

Its an engrossing film that uses the scale of Continental Civilization and Modern Architecture to nail home the ideas that corruption at this level is far reaching, more than one tiny man can take on when framed within such impressive examples of man's ability to shape the world with buildings, yet that single man cannot change the world for good.  Impressive to say the least.

Grade B

P.S.  This is also further evidence that if you put Clive Owen in a trench coat and hand him a gun your movie will be sweet.  (Exceptions that Prove the Rule:  I'll Sleep When I'm Dead).
« Last Edit: October 23, 2009, 04:41:27 PM by CSSCHNEIDER »
Taste is discerning, not all encompassing.

It's Not What You're Like, It's What You Like

Know the Difference Between Arts and Crafts

"Pain is Temporary, Film is Forever..." --John Milius

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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21388 on: October 23, 2009, 04:35:42 PM »
Two Lovers
Dir. James Grey

Wow.  I'm a bit overwhelmed.  My Top 10 has been pummeled in the last week, this being the most recent sucker punch.  Again, this is a film that was marketed very strangely.  I avoided it because, at least to me, I got the impression the film was some sort of Love Triangle thriller.  I hate films about jealousy.  Thankfully its not, its just a simple story told well about two people.  Its a bit magical and has the perfect ending.  I saw it coming a mile away, but if it would have deviated at all I would been pissed.  Vinessa Shaw is so beautiful in this.  The second she enters the room I was enamored by her.  And Isabella Rossellini needs to be in more films.  She reminded me a lot of my own mother, its a really understated and sweet performance.  Just see this film.  Please.

Grade A-

Edit:
I apologize for my review.  Its terrible and mumbling, but the film really hit me hard and I still can't rightly put into words my exact feelings.  Just know that I liked it and want everyone to see it.
Agreed. It ought to be required viewing for the Filmspots.

Corndog

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #21389 on: October 23, 2009, 04:36:33 PM »
Juno - It's been a while since I've smiled that much while watching a film, and I can't believe I didn't really like this movie the first time around. Sure, some of the dialogue hits odd notes that momentarily took me out of it, but it's still pretty gate. Not to mention Cera and Page's chemistry. It's all a lot of fun, and J.K. Simmons makes being a Dad looking CINECAST!ing awesome.

Glad you went back, I still love it. I really like the casting, great.


And Chris is making a serious 2009 push right now, bravo.
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