Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched  (Read 684764 times)

aewade90

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1610 on: November 27, 2017, 12:41:40 AM »
Speaking of slow and meditative, Brawl in Cell Block 99 was Peckinpah by way of Malick - a glacial character study with some horrible brutality that eschews modern American filmmaking to make sure you see every hit actually, y'know, hit. Where the hell was this version of Vaughn when he was doing True Detective's second season?

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chardy999

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1611 on: November 27, 2017, 04:08:33 AM »
Honestly, is there a chance in hell I'll like it?

No.

Great music though.
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Corndog

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1612 on: November 27, 2017, 07:52:06 AM »
Nocturama (2016)

This film that had enough buzz to get on my watchlist became more of a priority when I realized it was from the director of House of Tolerance. Unfortunately, that proved a poor heuristic. Picture a group of 20-somethings who are somehow savvy enough to organized a coordinated terrorist campaign but in every other respect (including political motive) the biggest idiots you can imagine. Now picture how spending over two hours with them feels. It does however get me to my goal of 52 foreign language films on the year (I also reached the same goal vis a vis female directed films). Still a month to go to run up the score.

Well, they're not idiots so much as vacuous people. I'd argue it's the whole point of the film ! But I understand finding it unpleasant for that reason, certainly. No love for the great use of The Pretenders theme and that My Way scene ?

I loved the first half hour of the film. The pacing and building of tension is really great. And then they are stuck in a mall and it's really boring.
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Teproc

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1613 on: November 28, 2017, 07:22:37 AM »
Kaguyahime no monogatari / The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata, 2013)

Yet another Ghibli masterpiece, sigh. Despite the small output, I think if you were to do an Adam-style poll in which one has to chose a studio, and every film made by other studios get destroyed, I'd chose to save them. It just makes me so happy that these films exist for people to see, especially children. They elevate my opinion of humanity, and of life in general. Which, hey, is kinda the subject of this film ! It's not exactly groundbreaking, but the execution... it's all in the watercolor animation I suppose. That and the Joe Hisaishi score. I don't know, I can't figure out what it is about these films that touches me so deeply. I cried twice watching this, and I don't cry often while watching films... there's a simplicity (and a sincerity) in the way they depict human connections that cuts right through the artifice of cinema (and of animation).

That ending is something else too. I was very worried when it started, initially wishing it had ended with the flying scene, but you need that melancholy (if not outright tragedy) afterwards I think. I like that it also plays as a dig at Buddhism, which gets so romanticized in the West one forgets it's yet another philosophy that essentially goes "the world sucks, so the first thing to do is to withdraw from it". CINECAST! that.

10/10
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1614 on: November 28, 2017, 08:55:34 AM »
And somehow that's not even Takahata's saddest movie.
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pixote

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1615 on: November 28, 2017, 06:39:00 PM »


The Florida Project  (Sean Baker, 2017)

This year's Moonlight: a sensitive look at lives that have been traditionally been pushed to the cinematic margins; and a movie that will cleanly divide audiences into the captivated and the bored. With Moonlight, I was on the captivated side of things, fully invested in that world and the characters. With The Florida Project, I could hardly have been more bored. There seemed to be about thirty minutes of good material here — the equivalent of one of Moonlight's well structured sections — but drawn out to feature length. The characters are frankly a little annoying, and the slices of their life lack enough cumulative narrative or thematic weight. Willem Dafoe is plenty likable as the much put upon, surprisingly patient, and occasionally tender manager of the hotel complex; though I'm not sure if that's more a compliment to his performance or to the character. Most of the best moments in the film involve the characters walking in front of the gaudy architecture that surrounds the outskirts of Disneyworld; the cinematography captures the colors in all their surreal glory and amplified my wish that I was watching an Errol Morris-style documentary instead of a fiction feature.

Grade: C

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pixote

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1616 on: November 28, 2017, 08:14:02 PM »


Lady Bird  (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

I wish I had more to say about Lady Bird. It's a fine little movie that I seem to have already mostly forgotten. Even upon exiting the theater, I found myself wondering what elevated it for people from good to great. It seemed to me so very familiar, almost even rote. It's a more accomplished film than 20th Century Women, say, but not by leaps and bounds. It's entertaining and pleasant but, at least for me, falls short of being moving or provocative or a laugh riot or any of those things. If I edited together 94 minutes of Lindsay Weir's storyline from Freaks and Geeks, would the result be every bit as good, if not overly similar?

edit: I hate that I'm accentuating the lack of positive in a film I did indeed like. I'll strive to be better.

Grade: B

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« Last Edit: November 28, 2017, 08:17:01 PM by pixote »
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1SO

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1617 on: November 29, 2017, 07:41:30 PM »
Coco
* * * - Good

I'm not sure I have the credibility anymore to review Pixar films. This one's fine. Again, I wish it was funnier, but it's one of their best looking films with each new location worthy of a few sweeping establishing shots. (My favorite that I hadn't already seen was inside Ernesto's luxury house.) There also will not be enough credit given to the detailed character design and imaginative, physical skeletal movements.



Two things bug at me though, and I don't know if this is worth taking to Spoilers, so I will talk vaguely.

The big dramatic scene is incredibly similar to the one in Inside Out. It's set in a similar location with two characters wrestling with the same drama. Just seems too uncanny coming from the same studio, especially when it doesn't look like a place that even belong in Coco.

The dog Dante has a small arc too. How he gets there... well I don't know Mexican culture, but it seems that to do it honestly he would have to take the audience to a really sad place. I'm glad that didn't happen, but now I'm left thinking they didn't achieve it honestly.


Olaf's Frozen Adventure
* * * - Good

This has no business being in front of Coco. It's too long as a bonus short and is the opposite in terms of setting the mood. Seems like this was designed for a half-hour of television where there wouldn't be resentment towards it.

I've see Disney make short films that cram in all the best call backs for sentiment and throw in a couple of new items that can be sold as toys. This looks and sounds like that, but it's genuinely a couple of steps in quality better. Almost as good as the feature itself, unless you're wanting less Olaf. "That Time of Year" is a really great holiday song and I've listened to the rest in the car. Kristen Bell's voice is improving, but she still can't keep up with Idina Menzel, who is an effortless powerhouse.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2017, 12:02:42 AM by 1SO »

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1618 on: November 29, 2017, 10:03:16 PM »
I'm not sure I have the credibility anymore to review Pixar films.
:o

You're probably the most qualified person on the fourms to talk about Pixar films given how exhaustively you've analyzed them.

smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #1619 on: November 30, 2017, 11:32:11 PM »
Shawshank Redemption

I believe in film perfection. It may not always last, it may not be every time, but every now and then you sit down and have a perfect experience.