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Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched  (Read 684107 times)

Corndog

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1390 on: September 21, 2017, 08:57:03 AM »
Detroit felt like it came and went so fast in the US, with hardly any buzz one way or the other.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1391 on: September 21, 2017, 08:57:58 AM »
Did you get one of your special masters of the world exclusive screenings?
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Corndog

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1392 on: September 21, 2017, 09:06:08 AM »
Columbus, Ohio is weird. They sometimes don't screen "big" movies like that. Fox and Paramount in particular hardly even screen here because they don't see it as a big enough market. They claim it feeds into the Cincinnati and Cleveland markets, which is preposterous.

Columbus is the 14th largest city in the US by population, more than both Cincinnati and Cleveland.
Columbus is the 33rd largest metropolitan area in the US by population, just barely behind Cincinnati and Cleveland.

I wonder what it is like in other mid-markets like Denver, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, etc. Heck, I wonder what it's like in Cincinnati and Cleveland.

So to answer your question DH, no, they didn't screen it. And I never saw it.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1393 on: September 21, 2017, 09:26:50 AM »
Surely the state that elects presidents can manage to get better movie distribution?
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Corndog

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1394 on: September 21, 2017, 09:34:42 AM »
Surely the state that elects presidents can manage to get better movie distribution?

Wrong thread.
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Corndog

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1395 on: September 21, 2017, 10:14:57 AM »
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Matthew Vaughn, 2017)

2014's Kingsman: The Secret Service made a splash on the spy genre upon its release, taking the same tropes that made James Bond such a long lasting pop culture icon and amping them up beyond belief. First, don't get me started on why first movies require subtitles (why couldn't it have just been Kingsman!? - but also why couldn't Sam Jackson have just talked normal in that movie). Admittedly, it is a hell of a ride from start to finish, but I was one of the mild detractors of the film. It is too often trying too hard to be too cool, and has a certain passion for violence and sexism. The sequel, in what is sure to be more in the series, does more of the same, but this time it doesn't feel quite as original, and it doesn't have quite the same bold panache, which leaves it falling rather flat.

After helping the independent spy organization Kingsman take down a baddie in order to gain his seat at the table, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) finds himself a full-fledged member of the organization. But he is soon targeted, as is the rest of Kingsman, by a former recruit, but his plot seems to run deeper than revenge. Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) remain the only two to get to the bottom of the attack, and are mysteriously sent to Kentucky where their American cousins might be able to help uncover the plot. Lead by a scruffy cowboy (Jeff Bridges) who runs a bourbon empire, Statesman includes capable agents (Channing Tatum, Pablo Pascal, Halle Berry), who are willing to help. They also discover Harry (Colin Firth) alive, but forgetful of his training. They soon find out that the recruit is working for drug lord Poppy (Julianne Moore), who is trying to blackmail the President into legitimizing her drug empire.

Credit should be given where credit is due. This movie knows what it wants to be and it does it extremely well. Director Matthew Vaughn, who helmed the first film as well, has a great handle on what he wants Kingsman to be. The casting I would argue is perfect (I don't know how they got Jeff Bridges to do this, but I can't imagine anyone else in the role). Egerton is sleazy enough to play the cocky protagonist, Julianne Moore is having plenty of fun here, Mark Strong should be in more things, and lastly Colin Firth, who is somehow the weak link this installment, feeling like he is mostly going through the motions. The film is stylish, it has tremendous flourish, especially in its meticulously choreographed action scenes, and its violent and vulgar. That is what you get with Kingsman, and that is what you expect.

At the same time, as I said in my opening, Kingsman: The Golden Circle doesn't have the same freshness as it's original. We've seen the action scenes before, we've seen the characters before, with the Statesman counterparts not playing enough of a role to make a major impact, and while Julianne Moore does everything she can to rival Sam Jackson's villain, her dream world lair is too outlandish for my tastes, even in a film full of outlandish things. And I think that is mostly where the film loses me, the fantasy. I can get on board with outlandish to some degree, but The Golden Circle seems to knock the viewer over the head with it, to the point that I failed to care much about what was happening. The Secret Service pushed the envelope, but The Golden Circle breaks it.

I feel Kingsman fatigue after this film, and while I may be in the minority, or rather the film may well have its staunch fanbase who laud its vulgarity and violence (which by the way, this one feels less vulgar, less violent too), I would be fine never seeing another one of these movies. Look, it's fine escapist entertainment. Completely mindless. If the film has one thing going for it, however, its the potential of a Jeff Bridges/Channing Tatum Statesman spinoff. I might watch that. But until Firth wakes up from his coma in his role, or Matthew Vaughn brings fresher ideas to an already stale product after just two films, I think I will pass on whatever subtitled sequel finds its way into my local theater next.

**1/2 - Average
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oldkid

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1396 on: September 22, 2017, 11:50:54 PM »
The first Kingsman was fine, as you say, escapist mindless stuff.  And I'm good.  I don't need to see another one.

Double Feature: The Notebook and Gone Girl

Never have two romances been so different.  One is filled with romantic clichés, the lost love that endures and then is found again, and the love that is pummeled into the ground and somehow is sparked again.  One is sentimental, enduring through the wealth of two great loves and the other is as unsentimental as they come, using love as a path to self-glorification.  To watch them together is an exercise in irony, an activity to smirk through.

I don’t find one to be more realistic than the other.  As one is cheerily romantic, the other is cynically pessimistic and both have their source in myopic emotionalism.  If anything, The Notebook is more realistic, for it acknowledges that marriage is work and that work has to do with openness and roughly forging out a common life.  Gone Girl seems to say that the only answer is to have one partner create the life and force the other partner to endure it.  Gone Girl, is, if anything, the ultimate gender flip, assuming that one sees marriage as a cartoon.

But beyond the differences in story, there is a deeper similarity in how their plots are constructed to be “modern.”  First, recognize one’s genre—romance and thriller in the case of these films.  Then toss in more cliched plot points that is typical of the genre than is usually contained in a single two hour film. Sure, you have love lost, but throw in the strong, silent male lead, and the supportive friendly male lead, the conflict with parents, the promise of a future which fails and then is finally gained and give it a framing device.  The same with Gone Girl, where we have a police procedural gone wrong, misleading clues, etc, etc, you get the idea.  Lots of tropes.  But these movies are overstuffed with them.  And each cliché is given just enough time to recognize the theme and then we move on.  We aren’t given enough time to get bored, to pause to realize that we aren’t given anything new.

And then, near the end, we are given something we’ve never seen before. In The Notebook it is that the framing device becomes the story.  In Gone Girl, it is the antagonist using a bloody murder to outperform her fictional twin.  And we leave the theatre satisfied because we weren’t just handed a pile of tropes (although we certainly had plenty of these), but also we were given one gem, which gives us the feeling that we’ve seen something unique.  The Notebook is more than just Brief Encounter and Gone Girl is more than Laura (1944).   

But they are also, in a sense, less than these films.  For they are so stuffed with plot that we aren’t supposed to look too closely at them.  We aren’t supposed to think about the characters or the plot twists too much.  We aren’t supposed to slow down and meditate, to think of our reality. We are caught up in the fantasy, to be thoroughly distracted for two hours and then happily go our way.  Brief Encounter is supposed to make us linger over patriarchy and how men oppress women, and the part we play in it.   Laura is supposed to help us recognize that love is a process, but not entirely honest.  These films aren’t glib or simply cynical, they recognize the loveliness of love and the deceit of it and how it is both good and evil and neither.  Great plots don’t iron out the complexities so we see love as one entity, but it glories in the messiness and then hands it to us, saying, “This is your life. Isn’t it grand.”

"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Sandy

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1397 on: September 23, 2017, 08:37:19 PM »
Great read, oldkid. I haven't seen Gone Girl, but have seen the other three. Your words of comparing and contrasting, make me feel confused and unsettled. Yes, it's all so messy.

Sandy

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1398 on: September 23, 2017, 09:32:19 PM »
The Glass Castle



"The movie is less about forgiveness and more about acceptance."  -- Destin Daniel Cretton (director)

With so much emphasis on forgiveness in the world, acceptance gets a short shrift at times. Forgiveness is all about the wrestle with self to overcome the need to exact justice. It's a fight where the will must surrender in order to find peace. What a struggle. Ah, but acceptance can be something entirely different. It's a matter of walking out of the fray and into a quiet place, breathing in the understanding that people are flawed, sick and limited and a painless life was never guaranteed to anyone. The battle of forgiveness can rage on, but to accept something is to say, "Well, that happened. What can I learn from it and how can I move forward in a healthy way?"

Three actors, who I'm genuinely impressed with in their depth and range, bring so much to this story. Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts actually help me be able to sit through it. The (seemingly) lengthy movie is depressing and lives in chaos, which brings up a lot of angst in me, but I want to see them in their element, characters interacting with characters. I want to watch them fine tune their skills and rise to the challenge of their roles... and they do. An actors' workshop, if ever there was one.

« Last Edit: September 23, 2017, 09:43:31 PM by Sandy »

oldkid

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1399 on: September 23, 2017, 09:48:05 PM »
I'm certainly going to watch this one.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky