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Author Topic: A Decade of Filmspots  (Read 24898 times)

Teproc

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #130 on: January 16, 2018, 07:32:36 AM »
Ookami kodomo no Ame to Yuki / Wolf Children (Mamoru Hosoda, 2012)

Once you get past the very mediocre opening (ten minutes or so), this is basically a Ghibli-style coming of age film that goes a little further into adolescence than Ghibli usually does. It's charming as hell when they're little kids, and very moving when they get older and the mother has to deal with them growing up. She's almost impossibly great, but I guess I'm fine with that... having a sister who is currently raising her two children alone (they're respetively 8 and 7) made this hit very close to home: I'll be sure to make them watch this as soon as I can. The wolf thing works surprisingly well as a metaphor, both for the father and the children: not a subtle one certainly, but it's treated very matter-of-factly, which helps. A shame about that opening though. I didn't care for Hosoda's Boy and the Beast because it completely devolved into shoddy teenage melodrama, and there's a bit of that in there, though he does handle the teenage Ame and Yuki well enough. Curious to see more from him now, Summer Wars being the obvious next one to watch.

8/10

Won Animated Film, beating Frozen, Kokuriko-zaka kara/From Up on Poppy Hill, Monters University and Despicable Me 2... which I have seen none of. Certainly a worthy winner in a vacuum though.
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Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #131 on: July 21, 2019, 01:53:10 PM »
Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)

Avatar tells a story that has been told many times and I don't think that James Cameron brings much fresh meat to chew on to the table. The way he delivers, however, is stunning and the visuals easily make up for the meager skeleton that constitutes Avatar.

Avatar won for Best Visual Effects in 2009. A no-brainer. I also liked third placed District 9, but maybe more for it's aesthetics, rather than the visuals as such.

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Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #132 on: July 23, 2019, 01:43:42 PM »
17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009)

I tenderly hate the community for having made me watch 17 Again. It was voted Best Surprise in 2009, but either of the four other entries (Humpday, District 9, Moon and Paranormal Activity) would have been a more worthy winner, don't you think? All this makes me wonder if the Forum had a significantly different composite ten years ago than today, or am I just missing out on what's surprising about 17 Again?

The movie has a tightly written, I can give it that, but apart from this I don't see what warrants it the win in the Surprise category.

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Sandy

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #133 on: July 23, 2019, 04:14:47 PM »
tenderly hate

:))  I don't think I've ever seen those two words strung together before, but yet, they work!

oldkid

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #134 on: August 02, 2019, 01:15:29 AM »
I think that the community is just a smaller version of the community in 2009.  And older, significantly older.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

pixote

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #135 on: April 20, 2020, 03:15:35 AM »
Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013) — I believe I read somewhere that Tom Cruise agreed to do a Top Gun sequel without Tony Scott only because Kosinski came up with such a good story. Watching Oblivon makes that seem pretty far-fetched. The storytelling sense on display is often laughably bad, from the early exposition to the late “twists.” There are times when it feels like a parody of a Tom Cruise movie (reminiscent in that sense of Eyes Wide Shut). The script and the editing often hang Cruise out to dry, making him seem like a B actor in a C movie. On the other hand, the visual effects and the designs of the plane and drones are pretty slick, so Kosinski seems like a decent Top Gun choice in that regard – but even then, some of the flying scene feel less like cinema than an amusement park ride (Star Tours). I haven’t seen Passengers yet, but I bet it’d make a great misfire sci-fi double feature with Oblivion. I can only hope that that film has fewer let cookie cutter moments (I felt bad for Morgan Freeman here). Grade: C

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1SO

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #136 on: April 20, 2020, 12:07:32 PM »
I like that you found this thread.

pixote

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #137 on: April 20, 2020, 01:10:48 PM »
I like that you found this thread.

All my marathons are still active in my mind, lol. This thread's title actually refers to the first ten years of the Filmspots rather than the last ten years, but it still works. Most of my viewings will be from 2010-2016 anyway.

I also like that I'm starting to get back in the habit of posting reviews here. Hopefully I have some more positive ones coming up...

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smirnoff

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #138 on: April 20, 2020, 07:59:07 PM »
I haven’t seen Passengers yet, but I bet it’d make a great misfire sci-fi double feature with Oblivion. I can only hope that that film has fewer let cookie cutter moments (I felt bad for Morgan Freeman here). Grade: C

pixote

Totally agree with everything you wrote about Oblivion. I hope you do watch Passengers. There's more to discuss. :)

pixote

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Re: A Decade of Filmspots
« Reply #139 on: April 21, 2020, 03:17:36 AM »
Hereditary (Ari Aster, 2018) — Midsommar caught me off-guard as one of my favorite films of 2019, but I didn’t vote for it as Best Surprise because I assumed I wouldn’t have been so surprised if I’d actually seen Hereditary beforehand (and also because I thought it’d be nominated for Best Picture, oops). I now have no idea how it would’ve played out if I’d seen Hereditary first. On the one hand, I think I would’ve been a little disappointed at some of the similarities between the two films (e.g., they both end with a crowning, something which could eventually make for one of the more interesting Director Trademarks on IMDb); but, on the other hand, I think I would’ve been fairly impressed at how much Aster had honed his craft between his debut and his sophomore effort. In many ways, Hereditary is something of a rough draft for Midsommar. It’s a film of moments that never fully coheres. Some of those moments/shots are pretty great, though, despite often feeling like a hodepodge of borrowings from earlier horror films. Toni Collette’s performance was overshadowed, for me, by her own superior performance in the Netflix miniseries Unbelievable and by Ann Dowd’s performance as the Ruth Gordon character. I pretty much last remember Dowd as Tom Hank’s sister in Philadelphia, even though she seems more familiar than that. I think the film would’ve benefited from another couple scenes with her (and maybe a couple fewer scenes of Alex Wolff trying to cry). Grade C+

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