Author Topic: Write about the last movie you watched (2006-2010)  (Read 5996781 times)

skjerva

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 9448
  • I'm your audience.
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26410 on: January 28, 2010, 11:04:23 AM »
So then I should forgo Dear Zachary in favor of 35 Shots if at all possible?

probably. i might try for 35 tonight after Jack Goes Boating (w/ PSH present)
But I wish the public could, in the midst of its pleasures, see how blatantly it is being spoon-fed, and ask for slightly better dreams. 
                        - Iris Barry from "The Public's Pleasure" (1926)

CSSCHNEIDER

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 4646
  • I Shoot Movies, Don't I?
    • http://csschneideraccounts.blogspot.com/
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26411 on: January 28, 2010, 11:13:54 AM »
Adam

This was a sweet film.  Not syrupy, just nice and sweet.  I can't say I found anything transcendent in it, but I came away with a smile.  Enjoyable and worth seeking out.

Grade B
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

Winner! BFCS Iconoclast Award 2007

Fugee

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1335
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26412 on: January 28, 2010, 02:50:58 PM »
Audition - Well! This was the first time during in-class discussion where I raised my hand and contributed to the conversation about Audition before immediately being proven wrong by the professor. I'm so intelligent! This movie was bloody outstanding (no pun intended), and I'm surprised that I didn't get to it sooner. The use of color was something I had picked up on thanks to the other movies we've been watching in the class (Stuff like The Eye), and it does really add a whole lot to this flick. Combine that with a very interesting plot idea and melodramatic elements that I certainly wasn't expecting... and you've got a lovely movie. Now all I have to do is try and get that damn sound out of my head. Shoot, my ankles hurt now.

worm@work

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 7445
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26413 on: January 28, 2010, 02:52:12 PM »
So, um, happy birthday, worm!  It's the thought that counts, right?  Hooray for grade inflation!

pixote

Easily my favorite of the birthday gifts I've received so far :). Thanks for watching these pix and am so sorry they did so little for you :-\. I can easily understand your criticism of Dear Zachary. My reaction to the film was purely visceral / emotional and if it didn't get you emotionally, then I can see it being a pretty pointless experience.
Your reaction to 35 Rhums on the other hand I am going to attribute to your unreasonable disdain for the French :D.

Bondo

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 23082
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26414 on: January 28, 2010, 02:54:26 PM »
Bright Star

This just didn't do much for me. It seemed very stuffy or overwrought. The entirety is restricted by such a weightiness that it never gives itself room to breath and to enjoy in the romance. By seeming as downtrodden in love as in loss, it lacks an emotional range. What am I to learn from this, that life is miserable? I already know that and don't need a film to make it feel more so.

2/5

CSSCHNEIDER

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 4646
  • I Shoot Movies, Don't I?
    • http://csschneideraccounts.blogspot.com/
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26415 on: January 28, 2010, 02:55:28 PM »
Watchmen:  The Director's Cut

Like Kingdom of Heaven, making this film longer doesn't make it better.  There are flashes of incredible and amazing but ultimately I still feel that I'd rather read the comic than sit through this film.  Rorschach is still the best thing about the book and the film.  Whenever Jackie Earle Haley is on screen, with or without mask, its riveting.  The rest of the flick is a snoozefest.  Sure, the opening credit sequence is pretty outstanding, and much of the photography is gorgeous, but I just can't get into the film, and yes I did like the book.

All my negativity still doesn't or at least shouldn't take away from the fact that Snyder does an admirable job of adapting this for the screen.  I just believe that the book can't be done proper justice on the screen.  Unless they maybe would have made it a 12 part Miniseries on HBO.

Grade B-

I forgot to mention that I do believe that it should at least be nominated for Best Costume Design, if not win.  The costumes are incredible.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2010, 02:58:16 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

Winner! BFCS Iconoclast Award 2007

worm@work

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 7445
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26416 on: January 28, 2010, 02:58:08 PM »

24 City (Jia Zhangke, 2008)

So all the Jia films I've watched concern themselves with the cost of China's economic boom. Where we see economic boom and progress, Jia's films focus on what they replaced - the upheaval, dislocation and the broken lives. They highlight not the construction of the new but the thoughtless demolition of what was. In Platform, we see a theater troupe coping with the consequences of Western cultural influence. In Still Life, we see the dislocation of masses of people to make way for the Three Gorges dam. Here we see a once-bustling factory that provided employment to thousands of workers being razed to the ground to make way for a sparkling new luxury apartment complex.

On the surface, 24 City feels like a conventional, talking heads documentary. I love the opening shots where the camera moves around the factory floor capturing the final days of production in Factory 420. We see burning ingots of steel being pounded into shape. It's a living, breathing, active factory in these shots and that just makes it even more chilling when we later see the floor emptied of all the machines and being stripped for materials. The bulk of the film is interviews with a handful of workers at the factory. But unlike typical documentaries, there is something incredibly formal and controlled about the way the film is composed and shot. The interviews are intermingled with these beautifully framed tracking shots of the factory buildings and the machinery as well as silent portraits of anonymous workers who simply pose for the camera without saying anything. They seem so graceful and dignified and in the few seconds where we linger on their faces, we can see that there are hundreds of stories akin to the ones we hear that will probably forever remain untold. The stories we do hear are extremely personal ones - about being separated from family members, about sacrifices made in exchange for employment, about the lack of job security and one thing that comes across loud and clear is how these buildings that are being demolished constituted these peoples' entire world. I was already very much caught up in the film when one of the interviewees suddenly made me question my impression of the film thus far. That's when I came to realize that the film is interweaving documentary with fiction somewhat seamlessly and that in itself communicates something beyond what the stories from the interviews are conveying. There's a sense that even the documentary segments are stories that are in some sense "constructed" by the narrator. There are vicissitudes of memory at play and perhaps Jia wants to acknowledge that truth itself is imprecise and unstable. One of my favorite things about the film is just how restrained both the film itself and the individual interviewees are. The protagonists' stories are never played for sentimental value and the camera never lingers on the images of destruction longer than necessary. Really like the score too (I think it's just one piece that plays repeatedly throughout the film) and those digital images are stunning.

pix, please tell me this is going to be eligible for the Filmspots next year.

Grade: A-

sdedalus

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 16585
  • I have a prestigious blog, sir!
    • The End of Cinema
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26417 on: January 28, 2010, 03:33:49 PM »
Great review, I really liked it as well.  I think you and I are the only ones who'll vote for it, though.

I think it should be eligible in the Documentary category.
The End of Cinema

Seattle Screen Scene

"He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?"

edgar00

  • 00 Agent
  • Objectively Awesome
  • *
  • Posts: 12131
  • corndogs are better than Die Another Day
    • Between The Seats
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26418 on: January 28, 2010, 03:37:06 PM »
Dr. Strangelove (1963, Stanley Kubrick)
B+

Nothing in the movie makes me laugh out loud, but where the movie attracts me is how the characters and situations is so darn entertainning to watch. This despite the fact that the movie depicts the end of the world and the stupidity of humanity in leading ourselves to the end of the world. Kubrick is right in a sense. We're so silly and moronic on the big topics that it is in fact comical.

It was the third or fourth time I watched the movie (I try to keep it fresh in my memory once every couple years) and yet I always forget how much little screen time the character of Dr. Strangelove is awarded. My favourite scenes are those between Sterling Hayden and the British Peter Sellers character. What Hayden says and the reactions, both verbal and physical, from Peter Sellers are great.

All in all, a good time. And brisk too. The movie is barely 90 minutes.

I love the efficiency of this - in my memory this film is 2 and half hours long!

It was over before I realized it.
-Le Chiffre: You changed your shirt, Mr Bond. I hope our little game isn't causing you to perspire.

-James Bond: A little. But I won't consider myself to be in trouble until I start weeping blood.

https://twitter.com/Betweentheseats
http://crabkeyheadquarters.wordpress.com/

edgar00

  • 00 Agent
  • Objectively Awesome
  • *
  • Posts: 12131
  • corndogs are better than Die Another Day
    • Between The Seats
Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #26419 on: January 28, 2010, 03:43:44 PM »

24 City (Jia Zhangke, 2008)


Grade: A-

I remember very much enjoying Still Life. Since last year during the holidays when I saw the film, I haven't looked for any other Jia movie. I'll make sure to see this one at some point. Thanks for the review.
-Le Chiffre: You changed your shirt, Mr Bond. I hope our little game isn't causing you to perspire.

-James Bond: A little. But I won't consider myself to be in trouble until I start weeping blood.

https://twitter.com/Betweentheseats
http://crabkeyheadquarters.wordpress.com/