love

Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched  (Read 684292 times)

Bondo

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 23082
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3520 on: May 11, 2019, 03:24:35 AM »
Speaking of Sebastian Stan...

Destroyer (2018)

Nominated for a Golden Globe, this role for Nicole Kidman is one of those very awardsy type things. In the opening scenes (and subsequently any "present" scenes), she is made up to look very rough. We find out that she is a police officer who had gone undercover in a bank robbery gang some 16 years prior and things did not go great, leaving her as a battered, depressed antihero cop that apparently still has a job even though by any metric she is not responsible with that power. Not generally being a fan of antihero stories, it isn't a role that particularly works for me, and in this case I was further alienated by one particularly "clever" turn.

Sebastian Stan is involved as her undercover partner in that original assignment. He isn't given much to do here, he's more a plot element to drive Kidman's character which I guess is progress since that is how so many female roles are conceived? I think it may be time for me to accept that Karyn Kusama and I just aren't working on the same wavelength between this, The Invitation and Jennifer's Body.

FLYmeatwad

  • An Acronym
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28785
  • I am trying to impress myself. I have yet to do it
    • Processed Grass
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3521 on: May 11, 2019, 04:27:16 PM »
Need to seek that out, though I've gotten a similar vibe from what you wrote in the first paragraph, Bondo, which is why I didn't make the trek to Philly to see it last year. Did really like The Invitation though, and feel like I would have been an early champion of Jennifer's Body had I not been in the group who wrote it off when it came out without seeing it, as it seems to play to my sensibilities, but, alas, I still need to catch up with that as well.

MacGruber is fantastic.

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3522 on: May 12, 2019, 12:31:01 PM »
The Singing Marine (1937)
★ ★
I like crooner Dick Powell as an actor and a singer, but even his best songs are only slightly above mediocre Bing Crosby. These songs are not that good, and while I know it's a musical there's way too much music. Seven tunes, plus a harmonica solo and a full reprise, no wonder this 80 minute story runs 105. Even the Busby Berkeley musical numbers look like they were made on a tight budget. Typical Warner Bros. supporting cast - Allen Jenkins, Jane Darwell, Jane Wyman, Ward Bond - is largely underused.


Nice Girl? (1941)
★ ★
Deanna Durbin is given a great supporting cast: Walter Brennan, Franchot Tone, Robert Benchley, Helen Broderick, Robert Stack. Too bad the story is caught between being a bold coming-of-age for the young singer and the morality restrictions of the time. Plot centers around a series of events that lead to her spending the night with Tone at his mansion and the gossip that follows the next day, but it's so old fashioned and since they can't tackle the subject honestly, the entire back half is a confused mix of rom/com and social drama.

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3523 on: May 12, 2019, 07:37:51 PM »

Two Sisters From Boston (1946)

Another June Allyson musical (something I set aside as a project for this month), but unfortunately she's only a supporting player with just one number, the best number in the film (pictured above). Entitled "After the Show", Allyson plays a conservative woman in the early 20th Century who agrees to perform in a burlesque house to help her sister. She tries to preserve her modesty, but the other dancers keep taking it away. It's great to watch this very skilled singer and dancer play someone who is bad at both, but discovers her abilities as the song progresses, ultimately owning the moment.

The lead sister is played by Kathryn Grayson (Kiss Me Kate, Show Boat), who has a great voice but, you know, she's no June Allyson. There's also a famous opera singer (Lauritz Melchior) to bring balance to Jimmy Durante, who is like all three Marx Brothers in one. (That's good or bad depending on if you're ready for the verbal assault.) While it's a disappointment considering what I was expecting, the story, comedy and performances were good enough to where I can recommend the film.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Okay

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3524 on: May 12, 2019, 10:45:09 PM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMvK2McD-Mw
Chandni Chowk to China (2009)

I had watched this trailer a lot. A Bollywood film in the magical realism style of Kung Fu Hustle with the legendary Gordon Liu as the baddie and Deepika Padukone, a Bollywood superstar I've enjoyed in a few films, here playing her typical female lead and an ass-kicking bad girl in leather and bangs. Partly financed by Warner Bros., there was a lot to interest me. Enough where 10 years later I was still thinking about it, despite the horrible reviews. (2.1 on Letterboxd, 4.0 on IMDB.)

The fights, effects and overall production value is fairly high for Bollywood and there are moments where I found what I was looking for, but mostly this is a tediously unfunny film. I don't know how big a star Akshay Kumar is and he comes off as a nice person, with very few ego shots, but his performance is directed to behave like Dumb and Dumber, which wears thin immediately, but never lets up. I was warned.
Rating: ★ ˝

Teproc

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3529
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3525 on: May 14, 2019, 05:20:19 AM »
Recent watches (yes I've been catching up on Next Picture Show episodes)

A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman, 1959)

Nominally a horror film, but most effective as a satire of late 50s beatniks with some interesting points about, well, the nature of art. It helps that the beatniks in question would not be out of place in Brooklyn (or Paris, or any big Western city I suspect) today. Julian Burton as the poet is particularly delightful, which I think gets at something that this film gets right: it doesn't show the environment with sneering contempt as much as light amusement. The two drunks we see in several scenes play a bit like audience surrogates, and their moments were often a highlight. I also like that Dick Miller doesn't even really try to hide the truth behind his sculptures: he doesn't exactly volunteer the information but he never denies it when confronted. With the way we constantly depict geniuses as being terrible people, it's pretty easy to see how he would just assume that what he did was one creative process like another... well, at first anyway.

As for the nature of art, I don't know that the film has a thesis about it as much as a general interest. It's about as substantive on the matter as a discussion with friends in a café would be, which I don't mean as a dig.

7/10

Velvet Buzzsaw (Dan Gilroy, 2019)


Recent satires of the contemporary art world (The Square comes to mind) always strike me as unnecessarily mean-spirited, and inevitably use characters whose shallowness is supposed to be the point but makes for poor storytelling. This shows a bit more promise in that department, but throws it all away by being an uninspired horror film instead, with murder tableaux that look like rejected ideas for Hannibal, except perhaps for the Rene Russo one. So it falls at entertainment and doesn't really get there on the character front, which leaves only contempt.

3/10

Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Rob Letterman, 2019)


More of a children's film that I expected given the noir-y look... though really I was just confused by the movie's existence and premise. And I'm not sure the film really justified those choices: Ryan Reynolds is basically doing PG Deadpool in a film that seems to be going for a much more earnest tone, and you have Bill Nighy doing a cartoonish villain which should be fun but isn't really ? I don't know what to make of it. It has some very succesful ideas on how to use certain Pokémons (Mr. Mime, the earthy turtle ones I didn't remember from playing the game all these years ago), but I just don't know why you'd wrap a childrens films into a noir plot that's simultaneously confusing and predictable, with emotional payoffs that kinda work but not as well as they could have if the film wasn't just so busy with trying to do this weird juxtaposition of tones.

5/10

White Men Can't Jump (Ron Shelton, 1992)


Much smarter and introspective about issues such as race, relationships and addiction than I expected a 90s sports movie to be. Snipes and Harrelson are great, they nail this adversarial relationship, the kind where you do appreciate someone but wouldn't really put yourself on the line for them (as Snipes pointedly doesn't do at a crucial point late in the film) because our society is based on individualism and you have to look for yourself. It's nice that they did their own basketball playing, but I didn't find it to be shot very dynamically in general, especially the last game shown with its copious use of slow motion.

7/10

High Flying Bird (Steven Soderbergh, 2019)


Part heist/business thriller, part exploration of a particular milieu and its underlying racial tensions, this is more stimulating than satisfying, and part of me wishes Soderbergh had chosen one of these two modes and stuck to it, because as is I felt like the late plot developments on the exploration of basketball as a microcosm of modern America. When the film explored the ways in which basket-ball (something I have zero knowledge about) intersects with race and disruptive capitalism through various characters (and strong performances), I really loved it... and I think I could have loved it in the form of a heist film as well, but in the end that part of it often felt rushed and underplayed for me, and distracting from the more interesting part of the film.

7/10

Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990)


I'm surprised by how seldom this is referred to as the primary source of inspiration for The Matrix, because there's a lot here. The bug-removal, the red pill (used differently, true), the general mindCINECAST!ery the character goes through juxtaposed with exceptional effects work and the cross between philosophical inquiries and badass action... anyway, this is probably the best possible use of the "was it all a dream" ending. None of the in-world narrative quite add up: you either have to take the first fifteen minutes at face value which means accepting Schwarzenegger as an average Joe (hah) and that he would be so frustrated with his life (which seems quite nice even before taking into account that his wife is Sharon Stone at her attractiveness peak) as to go to Recall... or you have to accept all the insanity that comes after that, including the bonkers final minutes. In the end, it plays as the most fun exercise in post-modern skepticism ever.

8/10

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)


What an experience. Kaufman is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at you and not all of it works (we're too familiar with the echography sound now for it to be as creepy as he wants it to be) but it adds up to one of the most effective horror films I've seen in terms of pure mood, and a perfect encapsulation of 70s liberal blues. Great cast, a willingness to experiment with effects, score and direction on top of a very simple and effective concept (as seen in the very lean original) and an unforgettable ending... amazing overall.

9/10

Legend: All-Time Favorite | Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Poor  |  Bad

Letterbox'd

Bondo

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 23082
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3526 on: May 14, 2019, 06:03:46 AM »
White Men Can't Jump was on frequent rotation for me in the early 90s. Never mind that I was in my low 10s.

Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop

Having been blown away by Erin Lee Carter's At the Heart of Gold, I am watching her two other HBO documentaries. This one focuses on the prosecution of an NYPD officer for conspiracy to kidnap based off of conversations he had through a dark kink website, in this case his discussion of fantasies of kidnapping women, cooking them and eating them. It is not as special or moving a documentary as the other but it is an interesting film that teases out some interesting questions about free speech.

I used to be a pretty die-hard free speech advocate, basically as it related to offensive speech I figured that would solve itself because they would be revealing themselves to be worthy of contempt and be shunned. But the rise of 8-chan and the alt-right, various online communities whose vile speech increasingly spills over into real violence, has me much less convinced. Though the adage about putting a frog in water and slowing heating it up is not scientifically accurate, it is relevant to these kind of situations where it is hard to draw a concrete line of where something slips over from just speech to a real plan to commit a crime.

Here his fantasies involved real women, he abused his access to information as a cop to get information about the women that he wouldn't have as an ordinary person, He googled various aspects of what it would take for him to make his fantasy a reality. Does his visiting at least one of the women count as an escalation if there is a plausible argument he would have taken the trip anyway? It is entirely possible these steps that make it look like he intends to follow through are just things he does to add as much realism to the fantasy without actually doing it. Leaving the documentary, I am not sure I have any greater sense of how I'd respond to his case as a juror much less could argue where the right place to draw the line is, and I suppose as Alan Dershowitz (the criminal defense talking head of choice for the film) says, that ambiguity probably means a non-guilty verdict. I have reasonable doubts that he was actually conspiring to make his fantasies a reality.

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3527 on: May 14, 2019, 08:37:04 PM »
Wild Target (2010)
This film gets so close to a touchdown that it's disappointing, but there's still quite a lot to behold, starting with the cast. Bill Nighy once again proves himself to be a treasure, as a hitman who ends up accepting a protection job from his target (Emily Blunt), the title character who can't resist attempting to steal everything she sees. Rupert Grint is a layabout who becomes an apprentice after displaying extraordinary skill under pressure. (Grint doesn't have much range, but gets good laughs when he follows up his amazing actions with a look of "Did you see that?")

It's good these three are so on the mark because Martin Freeman doesn't seem to know what to do with his #2 hitman character, letting his fake teeth act for him. A real missed opportunity, Freeman is 2nd to Nighy even though he's more effective at his job. It's just that nobody likes him.

Directed by Jonathan Lynn, the first half gets up a good head of screwball steam with biting banter and a cocktail of broad American humor served proper. It never goes fully downhill, but the back half occasionally seems lost as to if it wants to maintain the hitman humor or go for deeper character comedy. It also needed just a couple more big laughs for me to recommend it beyond the lead performances.
Rating: ★ ★ ˝


The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
★ ★ ˝
As the story goes on, it takes ideas too liberally from The Matrix, but I like the premise and Anthony Mackie was a welcome bonus beyond the cast I knew. Written and Directed by George Nolfi, from a story by Philip K. Dick, I wish Nolfi stood aside for a more experienced director. At its best, this is a small indie love story with too much production value. Could've been a nice break into the mainstream for someone like Shane Carruth.


Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)
★ ★ ˝
The mythology at the start was uncharted territory on the level of Warcraft and I wondered how much I would be able to follow with all the customs, myths and names. After that initial rough go, things become all too familiar with noble owls defending themselves against evil owls in a series of clashes played out in  the familiar style of Zack Snyder. (The film slows down at each moment of impact.) Visually, the film is top level, reminding me of the photo-animated-realism of Dinosaur (at least that's how it looked in 2000). Only Into the Spider-Verse matches this for being so visually striking, especially in terms of the texture mapping and feathery details.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2019, 12:36:51 AM by 1SO »

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3528 on: May 14, 2019, 11:53:45 PM »
The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010)
★ ★ ˝
George Washington, The Virgin Suicides, Polytechnique, Tangerine. There are a number of film debuts where I'm mixed on the film, but my ears perk up watching somebody with a strong sense of mood, territory marked that this filmmaker has something unique to say. Writer/Director David Robert Mitchell does it here and I am now officially a fan. This debut is like a ragged, indie American Graffiti, a series of scenes that don't cohere around a central theme or idea but individual moments are strong and there's a sustained amount of intrigue about where the night is headed. The line from this through It Follows and stopping (for now) on Under the Silver Lake is clear and bold, and what has me fascinated the most is the way Mitchell makes his characters sexual without sexualizing them. It's not like Eighth Grade (a better film), which, like most of this type, use embarrassing situations to deal with sex. Mitchell understands that all physical activity - holding hands, dripping water on a girl's leg - is about making a connection and filling an emptiness these young people didn't realize was inside them.

My next Batch of 5 will be re-watches and I'm putting It Follows in that group.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2019, 11:56:00 PM by 1SO »

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3529 on: May 16, 2019, 12:27:41 AM »

Girl Crazy (1943)
"I like to put my cards on the table."
"Well I think you could have taken out the joker."


Most of the Judy Garland I have left to watch teams her with Mickey Rooney, which is too bad because he can be a pest. I don't mind a bit of ham, Cagney is one of my favorite actors, but he does it for our entertainment. Rooney wants you to know that he can do everything and his energy undermines realism with a desperate desire to be liked. There's a scene here where he does a one man radio broadcast of sporting events. providing all the voices and the sound effects. It's an amazing feat but obnoxious to listen to.

Garland easily outshines him just be doing what comes naturally, like singing "Embraceable You" while sitting on an upright piano that men glide around the dance floor. The story is corny, even for a 1940s musical, but bandleader Tommy Dorsey gives some nice support, June Allyson kicks things off in high style, Busby Berkeley brings his touch to the finale ("I Got Rhythm") and the costumes are really swell. To give Rooney some praise, he woos Garland with a song while dancing all around a convertible that's clearly moving. Sometimes his fearless energy pays off.
★ ★ ˝

 

love