love

Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched  (Read 684706 times)

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #360 on: January 29, 2017, 05:26:30 PM »
Ugh, that Winter on Fire review took way too long to write and it's not even a very good review. Some quicker hits:

Hunt for the Wilderpeople  (Taika Waititi, 2016)
A nice little movie, however slight, more amusing to me than laugh-out-loud funny. It's exceedingly well made, with highest marks going to the editing, which is not only technically sharp but also a strong source of humor.
Grade: B-

Don't Think Twice  (Mike Birbiglia, 2016)
When Don't Think Twice just freely focuses on the general camaraderie of the improv group, it's effortlessly pleasant, both in its writing and in the work of its ensemble cast. But, yikes, the story beats are all handled so poorly. "Dad, I don't like real estate," says one character, dismissively and dumbly, without no acknowledgement of his own very current real estate crisis. That moment is indicative of the script's plotting as a whole.
Grade: B-

The Fits  (Anna Rose Holmer, 2015)
A hard movie not to like, but I'm an expert. The themes seem better suited for a haiku than for a 72-minute film. It starts off in Billy Elliott territory but then meanders into Picnic at Hanging Rock terrain and flies away. It's still a weirdly admirable effort, though, despite being largely dull.
Grade: C+

Hidden Figures  (Theodore Melfi, 2016)
I'm glad this story has been told and told with wide appeal, but I couldn't muster up much enthusiasm for the means of its telling. I was actually excited for some paint-by-numbers entertainment, but this was a bridge too far (e.g,. Kevin Costner's character saying, for no good reason, "Maybe it's not new math at all," then walking away to leave Taraji P. Henson with the eureka moment that he inspired). I almost felt like the League of Their Own-style treatment of this history turned the trailblazing women at the center of the story into slightly clownish figures in need of validation from the more serious white characters around them. I'm overstating things, but there's definitely something there I found troubling. I would have preferred an Apollo 13-style treatment, or any style that took math and science at all seriously. Janelle Monae impressed me more here than in Moonlight. I wish her role hadn't been so peripheral.
Grade: C

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

Sandy

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12075
  • "The life we build, we never stop creating.”
    • Sandy's Cinematic Musings
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #361 on: January 29, 2017, 06:09:41 PM »
Hidden Figures  (Theodore Melfi, 2016)
I'm glad this story has been told and told with wide appeal, but I couldn't muster up much enthusiasm for the means of its telling. I was actually excited for some paint-by-numbers entertainment, but this was a bridge too far (e.g,. Kevin Costner's character saying, for no good reason, "Maybe it's not new math at all," then walking away to leave Taraji P. Henson with the eureka moment that he inspired). I almost felt like the League of Their Own-style treatment of this history turned the trailblazing women at the center of the story into slightly clownish figures in need of validation from the more serious white characters around them. I'm overstating things, but there's definitely something there I found troubling. I would have preferred an Apollo 13-style treatment, or any style that took math and science at all seriously. Janelle Monae impressed me more here than in Moonlight. I wish her role hadn't been so peripheral.
Grade: C

pixote

Great insights here, pixote. That type of moment of "not new math at all" plays out in different scenes which make me wondering if a different director could have fixed the parts that were keeping me from embracing this movie more. The two that stuck out to me most are when he had Katherine take all her math work to the bathroom a half mile away. Why?! It completely took me out of the reason the scenes were there in the first place. How much math can you do in a bathroom stall? Yes, it made her look clownish. Here she is one of the most intellectual people at NASA and she is reduced to silly visual gags. The other scene is when Paul is showing geometry by way of a plastic rocket, to engineers!

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #362 on: January 29, 2017, 06:17:08 PM »
The other scene is when Paul is showing geometry by way of a plastic rocket, to engineers!

:)

Jim Parsons is the front-runner in the new Filmspot category for Most Thankless Role.

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

Sandy

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12075
  • "The life we build, we never stop creating.”
    • Sandy's Cinematic Musings
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #363 on: January 29, 2017, 06:22:59 PM »
 :D

He's got my vote!

Bondo

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 23082
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #364 on: January 29, 2017, 07:00:18 PM »
I doubt there are many recent films that are more resonant and relevant right now in America, in this very instant, than Winter in Fire, a movie which is almost more document than documentary.

In a literal sense that may be true. However, if I was nominating for new Filmspot category for Most Politically Relevant, I might have to go with:

Denial (2016)

Throughout my years of higher education, I've only ever had to withdraw from one class. It was a composition class that I quickly realize was being graded on the basis of how much you agreed with the instructor. She revealed herself on day one to be a postmodernist, asking questions basically of the nature of "is gravity even a thing?" I am firmly of the belief that there are such things as facts, not just perceptions. This film puts the notion of a post-truth era on trial.

David Irving (Timothy Spall) is a man at home with white supremacists, as well as a historian of dubious merits based on denying that there was an orchestrated effort by the Nazis to exterminate Jews, including gassing them at Auschwitz. Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) is a professor who studies Holocaust denial, which naturally means she's had harsh words for Irving. Exploiting the nature of British libel law, he sues her for the damage her calling him a racist and a Holocaust denier has done to him.

So we have a man who calls out the academic elite, who is supported by white supremacists, and engages in bald-faced lying and a general approach meant to undercut the very notion of truth. But because he speaks plain, maybe charismatically, he gathers rather a following. It is also notable that the nature of the case puts truth and justice on the defensive, all in the name of creating a safe space for hatred. In what is also hopefully prescient, it may be lawyers and the law that stands as the one place truth still carries weight. Of note is a conflict between Deborah and her solicitors and barristers over tactics, between direct emotional approaches (voting third party, punching Nazis) and careful logical ones.

If the film is highly relevant, it doesn't follow that it is exceptional. Denial has strong acting, as one would expect from the cast, but does feel a bit too linear and workmanlike in how it moves through the plot.

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #365 on: January 30, 2017, 02:20:16 AM »
Among the group, one of the most enigmatic and unique members is goodguy. goodguy like to tell you what he's watching, usually with a cool, intriguing poster and an unusual trailer, rarely tells you what he thought, though there are hints on several threads. He watches more current movies in a year than I do. There were multiple invites to take part in things like Top 100 club, but gg likes to stick to his own playbook. A regular poster, but off on his own path, coming off to me as a traveller in a parallel movie world.

Wanting to know the tastes of goodguy better, I realized I would have to walk a mile in his shoes. I know from his posts that we don't look at movies in the same way. The first recommendation I remember taking up on was La Antena and it didn't go well. So I can't watch a goodguy movie expecting it to be something up my alley. It's a taste for a different palate, one I have yet to acquire, but if I'm ever gong to expand my horizons, I'm going to have to walk that mile.

Cosmos (2015)
The final film by Andrzej Zulawski, a filmmaker I initially despised, but have been coming around on. This is one of his less accessible efforts, meaning not only does it have the enigmatic and often impenetrable dialogue, it doesn't have nearly enough of the sensationalist excess that helped make him famous. If you can wipe away the thick outer layer, there's a playful puzzle underneath, with numerous visual symbols and meta conversations to open a large and lengthy Spoiler discussion thread. It's just that I found the outer layer discouraging, which I attribute to still being someone who tolerates the director at best. If you're a fan of Zulawski, I'd think of this as similar to Inland Empire in David Lynch's career.

Kosmos (2010)
I don't know when goodguy first shared the clip of Kosmos and Neptün circling each other and behaving like a couple of wild birds, but I knew immediately I would watch this film one day. It's quite an experience, one where I can say that even though it's not my type of film, this should easily be on more Top 100 lists. This is a film like Spirit of the Beehive, where you don't know where it came from but there are some who will truly love this movie. It's difficult to describe accurately, but I love how Kosmos is seen as both a savior and a problem to be dealt with. I love how the actor has such presence, but is actually small and when he first talks, the voice is higher than I expected. I initially wasn't sure it was coming from him. The photography is also beautiful and the sound mix is unique and brings a lot to the production.  When I post in Top 100 Club I often ask why a film is in someone's list. There would be no question here. This opened my eyes a little bit, a peek at cinema still too sophisticated - but not at all snooty - for me.


p.s. Since I often write about this in the negative, I should at least mention that both films feature animal cruelty. In Cosmos it's clearly fake and largely off-camera. In Kosmos there are shots involving cattle butchered for meat. The images are better handled than other films I've seen, but it's still distressing to watch.


p.p.s. I still have L'attesa to watch, but I also have a couple of more 2016 screeners I want to watch first.

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #366 on: January 30, 2017, 04:05:54 AM »
Sunset Song
Terrence Davies (2015)


I have been putting-off watching Sunset Song for months and now I know why. It's the kind of movie where the sort of person who says things like « nothing happens in this movie » would tell you nothing happens. Plenty happens, it's just not a very interesting plenty. I managed to remain engaged for more than one hour, expecting the movie to pick up its pace and take me somewhere more compelling until its by the book nature became inescapable. The story is a series of clichés about life for turn of the century young women in the British countryside. Chris is a difficult character to empathise with because those who participate in their own enslavement do not generate much sympathy.

There is an attempt at lyricism in the part of the script that uses voice-over narration to go for some sort of transcendent themes. It is very Malickian in form but the impact is almost negligible, perhaps because it doesn't quite fit the character. There is certainly some amount of mishandling of the tone and spirit of the film, not so much because Sunset Song doesn't know what it wants to be but because it doesn't quite know how to be it.

I don't know why I found this so much less dull than Certain Women. Maybe the style. Still, credit where credit is due, it reacquainted me with the word "bonny".

5/10
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #367 on: January 30, 2017, 05:35:41 AM »
This one is partly for pixote.

Robocop and Starship Troopers
Paul Verhoeven (1987 and 1997)


Apparently Paul Verhoeven has a big thing for fascism. Nifty.

I don't know where that comes from. In the case of Robocop I surmised that maybe it was inspired by what was going on in Detroit but would that mean Starship Troopers is an indictment of the US military industrial complex as a whole? Or does Verhoeven just really like fascistic imagery? Regardless, he handles that fairly well. The former movie displays, among other things, perfectly shot architecture while ST goes so far as to create a high school of aryan-like super models for the rich.

These are not movies where you empathise profoundly with the protagonists thanks to carefully managed sympathy and strategically placed moments of levity. This is not Iron Man is what I am saying. You never much care about the characters (or even remember their names). All the fun is in the progression of the plot and the action scenes, even if there are some fun levity scenes in ST. This is old school 80's action where every body part is liable to explode and there are all sorts of fluids flying every each way.

Both stories are very simple but the more recent one has more to say. You have to ignore some hideous nonsense plot-holes though, like how a couple of 19 year olds are allowed to pilot a interstellar space ship or how insects are able to throw asteroids at other planets at luminal speed.

8/10
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #368 on: January 30, 2017, 05:39:20 AM »
High Rise
Ben Wheatly (2016)


finally a movie that puts the working class back in its place.

I don't know why I did not connect with High Rise. It felt like I should, especially when people start murdering each other left and right. Maybe it is because of the plot that makes no sense - or, at least, is insufficiently explained. The fact is that I didn't though.

6/10

« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #369 on: January 30, 2017, 06:11:08 AM »
I have been trying to finish this one for 10 days...

Silence
Martin Scorsese (2016)


Martin Scorsese is one of the directors I trust enough to blindly go watch any new movie he puts out. I haven't loved all of his films, whether early or recent, but the good far outweighs the bad and I am rarely averse to them. I vaguely knew Silence was about Catholic priests in feudal Japan going in, but that was about it.

If anything that much information played in favour of the movie. We really don't get enough movies about feudal Japans - or any other feudal society for that matter. I had to go all the way back to 2010 to find a movie that might have been released here (13 Assassins) and all such movies are usually about samurais. Here was a movie about a subject I love that looked at it from an angle that is almost never taken.

It is odd that I should like one of the most gorgeous movies of the year less than some drab, unremarkable fare I watched a few months ago and have already forgotten. The padres spend the movie pushing against the Japanese Inquisition (which, unlike the Spanish kind, is apparently completely expected) and coming to grips with their relationship to Jehovah. Scorsese treats his subject in a way that glorifies the fanaticism of his characters, both priestly and not, which makes it impossible to like the movie, or them. During the almost entire running time of the film martyrdom is portrayed as a noble thing, a demonstration of integrity when lying and humiliation provide a way out. The priests disagree about whether tramping on an image of Jesus is permissible but they are both intent on continuing preaching, whatever the cost visited upon their flock.

Garfield demonstrates some amount of doubt as the movie progresses and his deity remains silent. This feels more like Scorsese checking a box that everyone would be expecting than a genuine attempt to explore that corner of Garfield's psyche. I am likely wrong about that, I want to think Scorsese is better than that, but the whole thing was very much mishandled. The most egregious moments are when the heavenly powers actually speak to Garfield in audible voices.

I don't know how Scorsese lives his religiosity. I don't even know if he is religious at all. Had I not known he had directed this I would have thought the director had been fascinated by the worst aspects of Catholicism of the Jesuit variety. The last shot of the movie reveals something that demonstrates, if there was any doubt, that Silence is ultimately about faith, faith in the face of adversity and doubt. It believes such faith is a great, worthwhile thing, one that merits a two hour monument. I disagree.

The script only gets intellectually interesting during the discussions in its last third, when Garfield is confronted with the Inquisitor and Liam Neeson. There is no doubt the Japanese authorities are the villains of the story and the history, but the Jesuits are not blameless either, and it is in the allotment of blame and reason that these exchanges shine. The Inquisitor is not a barbarian fundamentalist but a learned man fighting for the sovereignty of his country. Neeson has become enlightened in the cultural realities of Japan that make it hard to preach Catholicism there. His explanation of how Garfield's converts are not real Christians is one of the movie's highlights and the kind of scene I would have loved to see more of. Garfield is deaf to most of their points. A lot of his arguments are right but he speaks out of emotion and faith, not intellectual conviction.

To my mind there were scores of superior stories that could have been told about this period and place, about this same subject even, especially with these means. I resent the film a bit for taking this marvellous opportunity and wasting it so, even if that is unfair. There is another point that I do not believe to be unfair though. Here we have a movie about Portuguese (is any of them a Spaniard?) men in Japan and all Europeans are played by Anglo-Saxons. It is not as if English-washing were anything new, but if there is ever an opportunity to play a movie in real language, surely this is it? A director's darling project, a historical piece, non-dead languages. Is this about mass audience appeal ? Is Silence supposed to attract large crowds ?

4/10
« Last Edit: January 30, 2017, 11:30:24 AM by Junior »
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

 

love