Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched  (Read 684374 times)

jdc

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2760 on: November 16, 2018, 02:26:37 AM »
Somebody is telling you not to go
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Bondo

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2761 on: November 17, 2018, 01:16:56 PM »
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

If nothing else, this Western anthology has panache, which is not surprising coming from the Coen brothers. It's six short stories are elegantly staged and shot, and laden with talented actors to play the parts. The stories themselves range from the darkly comic to the darkly dramatic. The through-line is a wild west that is indeed wild, and usually doesn't end well for you. There are plenty of small ironies or moral lessons, though not so much by way of warning because they don't necessarily offer alternatives that wouldn't end in punishment.

Certainly worth watching, but I reckon the ambition here is sufficiently restrained that Netflix is actually a very fitting place for it.

smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2762 on: November 17, 2018, 07:20:06 PM »
Straight Time (Ulu Grosbard, 1978)         6/10

A second viewing has taken away all my enthusiasm for this film. It's still strong but there was nothing worth coming back to. Just one of those cases where the memory was better than the second experience.



The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Mamoru Hosoda, 2006)        8/10

I could watch the characters throw a baseball around all day. There's something very comforting and nostalgic about these moments. As you grow older and accumulate responsibilities and adopt conflicting schedules, this sort of daily ritual among friends happens less and less or not at all. Hosoda captures the tone perfectly. Hitting the right notes at the right time in the right way is maybe the film's greatest strength. The score has a lot to do with that as well.

Sandy

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2763 on: November 17, 2018, 10:53:08 PM »
You describe what Hosoda captures in The Girl Who Leapt Through time, so well, smirnoff. I know those feelings and it's one of the main reasons the film endeared me to it.  Time for a revisit!

oldkid

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2764 on: November 18, 2018, 12:34:28 AM »
I thought it was pretty mediocre my first watch.  I need to watch again, with my anime-crazy daughter who has never seen it.
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Teproc

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2765 on: November 18, 2018, 08:54:48 AM »
A Star Is Born (George Cukor, 1954)

Watched this for the Next Picture Show episode about it, with relatively low expectations going in. I liked the new one fine and I'd seen very little from the main stars (The Wizard of Oz and North by Northwest, respectively), and the two Cukor films I've seen and liked (a lot) were in a whole different genre (both screwball comedies), and am generally skeptical of big expensive Hollywood films from this era. What I failed to take into account is that Hollywood was really good at making films about itself around this time.

Garland is amazing in this, and I now get why she's an icon. I kept thinking of Liza Minnelli in Cabaret (which, duh), but I might like this performance even more, perhaps because there is something so tragic about seeing her character confronted with someone suffering from addiction herself. She's also a tremendously impressive performer, which I suppose I should have expected but still. There's her voice of course, which I thought the first number was specifically showcasing though really she's belting off in every song, but the numbers here have her do just about everything short of acrobatics, with the most impressive being the one in which she reproduces the big number she's currently working on for Mason in their home. Born in a Trunk is an even more obvious showcase I suppose, the type that I'll admit I'm a sucker for (see also: the end of An American in Paris), and they both have layers upon layers of commentary on both the characters specifically and the industry at large (including pretty specific digs/nods, most of which probably flew way over my head).

The script is very sharp, and balances the inherent paradox within this type of film wonderfully. The film is simultaneously marveling at the grandeur and the beauty of show business while lamenting the cynicism of its enforcers and the way it ends up eating people alive. Melancholy, joy, grief and wonder, it has it all, truly. I'll refrain from comparing to the Cooper remake too much*, but where it differs most obviously is in the Norman Maine character. Mason portrays him as an endearing but tragic character, whereas Cooper's version is more self-pitying than anything else... I suppose they're both quite pathetic, but maybe it's harder to take Cooper seriously because it's much easier to see how he could just make comeback upon comebacks in the current landscape ? Whereas Mason's Norman Maine truly feels finished, from the very start of the film, and not just because of the industry he's working in. The ending is also handled much better, with the beautifully shot ocean scene and the choice Cukor makes to stop right before Garland starts singing. It makes its basic "One star rises, the other falls" point much more cogently and poignantly.

*or will I ?

I did watch the restored version with the still photos... they're not great, and the fact that they all come in a 20 minute period or so makes for a big lull in the middle of the film, and a pretty incomprehensible one at that - why you would cut some of scenes like their reunion is beyond me, but oh well. I'd be curious to watch the shorter cut, but I suspect that section would feel ever more disjointed, unfortunately. Who knows, maybe one day we'll find the scenes in some basement, like it happened for Metropolis ? IN any case, what' left is close enough to a masterpiece to me.

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MattDrufke

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2766 on: November 18, 2018, 09:54:45 AM »
Five minutes into Uncle Drew, my wife paused the movie to make popcorn and I thought to myself, "I am really going to love this movie." With all of the cameos and ridiculous gags, the opening of this film is, perhaps, my favorite opening to a movie in all of 2018.

And then the rest of it happened.

While the film occasionally has moments where it holds on to the wackiness and silliness of it's opening (or wonderfully filmed basketball shots), too often it chooses to fall back on formulaic plot nonsense. It says something that a major scene to move the plot forward is a scene in a cemetery which requires Kyrie Irving and Shaquille O'Neal to attempt to do some real capital-A Acting.

It's still a fine film and a decent watch, but it's a movie that opens with a five minute sprint then kind of limps through until the ending.

C+
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Jeff Schroeck

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2767 on: November 18, 2018, 10:57:42 AM »
Five minutes into Uncle Drew, my wife paused the movie to make popcorn and I thought to myself, "I am really going to love this movie." With all of the cameos and ridiculous gags, the opening of this film is, perhaps, my favorite opening to a movie in all of 2018.

And then the rest of it happened.

While the film occasionally has moments where it holds on to the wackiness and silliness of it's opening (or wonderfully filmed basketball shots), too often it chooses to fall back on formulaic plot nonsense. It says something that a major scene to move the plot forward is a scene in a cemetery which requires Kyrie Irving and Shaquille O'Neal to attempt to do some real capital-A Acting.

It's still a fine film and a decent watch, but it's a movie that opens with a five minute sprint then kind of limps through until the ending.

C+

That sounds similar to my experience of rewatching the third Naked Gun a few years ago. The opening Untouchables parody sequence is so good, and so I was ready for a movie as good as I remembered it being when I was 11/12, but after that it's one bad '90s lowbrow cliche after another.

1SO

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2768 on: November 18, 2018, 08:03:19 PM »

Redline (2009)
"Mr. President, we can't let Funky Boy run loose like that.
He's going to destroy Roboworld."

This Anime, with it's steadily growing cult reputation, frequently pops up as an IMDB recommendation for Best Sports film I haven't seen. It's unfortunate that because of my work schedule I had to watch this in two sittings over two days because it's a relentless assault on the senses. (Which means it's also unfortunate I had to watch this on my computer when it would really be something to experience in a theater.) Imagine if The Wachowski's Speed Racer dropped all the family story and other plots and focused solely on the racing. That's basically this movie, two wild and crazy races with a little bit of character in between. What's even crazier is that it doesn't run out of gas.


There is a high level of immaturity to the broad character types, and early on I thought I was going to tire of the endless bursts of speed and vehicle driving and destruction that defies physics and... well, reality. However, I found myself enjoying the relentless momentum more and more as it played out. (The score is very similar to Run Lola Run.) While the characters never stretch themselves, they're so overstuffed I never got tired of all the ideas blasting my eyeballs. For example, Redline champion Machine Head has been slowly replacing his body parts with car parts until he can act as his own engine. Our hero JP is both cocky and a loser, not afraid to do something dangerous in the moment while generally concerned that this life will probably kill him. It's not a work of genius, but with so much going on, I'm surprised to say it's not a mess, but a rather enjoyable fantasy... unfortunate aimed pretty directly at young men. If I'd seen this 25 years ago, it'd probably be in my Top 100.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Good

smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #2769 on: November 19, 2018, 02:55:02 AM »
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguezm, 2014)         6/10


"I'm a selfish slut who threw away the only man she ever loved. But I was wrong."
"Good one. I was born at night, but it wasn't last night.



I would nominate that for best line. I think it's a fun one and it's good in the moment.

It's hard to put my finger on what makes this movie less than it's predecessor but it is. Oh well, still not a bad experience. The style looks better here than it did before... I think they found fun new ways to use it and there were a lot of good characters. Marv has definitely lost a step since the last film.

The story was more tied together this go around, whereas before it was loosely stitched segments. I think that hurt it a bit, because any stories or characters you're not enjoying continue to recur until the ultimate conclusion. The worst bits ARE probably the characters that got carried over from the previous film. Everything that was new was more interesting.

 

love