Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched  (Read 684558 times)

Eric/E.T.

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4050 on: January 15, 2020, 12:53:47 AM »
Hmm, maybe Seberg (Amazon Studios FWIW) will be a 2020 Filmspot film. It’s great, but unfortunately I forsee it getting overlooked.

Just wondering, how'd you see it? I remember thinking the trailer looked cool, but it's not out til February. Course, I live in Phoenix, it's not the epicenter for cinema in America.

My most recent is Starlet, and I loved it sooooo much. Sean Baker's knack for casting is uncanny. Dree Hemmingway (Jane) and Besedka Johnson (Sadie), who only has this film to her name on IMDb, so basically became an actress very late in her life (movie came out a year before she passed away), form this incredible bond for what is one of the more memorable buddy films I've seen in recent memory. I read an article that stated Sean Baker's The Florida Project didn't have the "right" kind of poverty to be interesting to the Academy and such other award-givers. I'd say this might not have the "right" kind of female relationship to be huge, which is an indictment of us as movie-goers and thinkers. I mean, you have a porn star in Jane and an elderly woman in Sadie, who sold Jane a thermos that, likely unbeknownst to her, had $10,000 inside of it. Jane follows her around, gives her rides, tries to get to know her, likely trying to rationalize taking the money, but in Sadie she finds someone real outside of her work which focuses all on the superficial. On the other hand, Sadie is being challenged by Jane to live again, not be satisfied with simply playing Bingo and dying. The cinematography is lovely with a lot of near overexposure that emphasizes the bright sunny days in The Valley. Baker also has a knack for sound, as the ambient sounds on tap here, be it the birds chirping in Sadie's yard or the sounds from traffic on a run of the mill day in the Valley make you feel present. The use of the ambient tune Keeps Coming Back by Manual throughout anchors the film in something lovely, hopeful, and poignant.

Obviously I'm super late on this, despite having seen Tangerine and The Florida Project several times, each. Glad I have another Baker that I can obsessively rewatch.

Take Out is next. Hopefully I can find a way to see Prince of Broadway, too.
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1SO

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4051 on: January 15, 2020, 01:11:46 AM »
Thrilled that HONEYLAND got a nod! It is still my favorite film of the year. Doubtful anything else will come close. I was worried that not many people on here would see it, but now it will get a chance in streaming.

I should've read the warning label.

Honeyland (2019)

1SO should avoid this at all costs.

Oh well. I didn't hate it. Just not my thing. Kind of fascinating to watch people working with bees who had no idea what to do and basically had to accept getting stung repeatedly.

jdc

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4052 on: January 15, 2020, 03:51:47 AM »
That sounds like good entertainment, will put it on my list
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Bondo

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4053 on: January 15, 2020, 08:59:15 AM »
I saw Seberg at Toronto. Sadly K-Stew was not at my screening.

@1SO: I probably would have been underwhelmed with Honeyland if I didn’t latch onto it as parable of men displaying the Dunning-Kruger effect and ruining everything.

You should have started with Underwater like I did.

Did you review this; should I see it? Though Weathering With You is the top must see this weekend.

Junior

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4054 on: January 15, 2020, 10:56:16 AM »
I didn't, but I can now!

Underwater

So this movie starts with some philosophical ramblings, as any good monster movie is wont to do. In voiceover, Kristen Stewart tells us that when you're so far underwater, time starts to act funny. Now, I love this shit. I was preparing for some Sunshine-y goodness with that line. The rest of the film abandons it, sadly, and basically just does the last act of Sunshine (which I love, but only because it was preceded by the prior two acts of space-y philosophizing). It's pretty much all action from the end of her monologue on, as the deep water drill gets compromised and the few remaining crew members must travel to other sites on the seafloor to be rescued.

That'd be a fine enough premise on its own, but here there be monsters, and it turns into kind of a greatest hits of the Alien franchise. If you're gonna build a monster movie, heavily referencing the Alien films (up through Resurrection!) isn't a bad way to do it. Those bones are solid, and Stewart can ably inhabit a Ripley-esqe role right down to her absurdly skimpy underwear in some precarious situations. The rest of the cast is fine enough, but nothing to write home about.

The underwater monsters are pretty cool, if a bit too anthropomorphic for my liking. They're basically long thin human-shaped things. That is, until the ending, which reveals a giant Cthulhu-type monster that looks really cool. Unfortunately, all it does is look cool. Stewart dispatches it with ease and then there's a series of newspaper headlines indicating a coverup by the corporation, a bookend to the opening titles which might suggest a larger plot going on here but the movie does almost nothing with that. In all, it's a movie that looks cool and is thrilling in moments, with a good performance from KStew and not a whole ton else going on in its head.

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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4055 on: January 15, 2020, 05:17:09 PM »
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

All the Rick Dalton parts are a bore, Cliff is much more interesting to be around. Pitt is probably the best part. The Sharon Tate element feels so shoehorned in here even thought I get we need it to get to the end of the film and boy are those last 20 minutes the most fun I've had with a Tarantino film in a long time. Also, Bruce Lee is depicted as such an asshole in this film and that pisses me off. QT seems to be having a lot more fun making all the fake movies than the "real" movie. I'd love to see him do something in the style of a Deathproof again and just fully buy into the conventions and style of a genre flick.

So, in summary, there's maybe a good 90 minute movie buried in here. I should be surprised that so much love is lavished on something that feels so overindulgent, but since that seems to be the appeal of QT I guess I'll continue to shrug and say that QT is not for me.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4056 on: January 15, 2020, 07:04:14 PM »
I saw Seberg at Toronto. Sadly K-Stew was not at my screening.

"K-Stew", huh? lol...didn't know you all were tight like that...
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1SO

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4057 on: January 15, 2020, 09:46:23 PM »
Also, Bruce Lee is depicted as such an asshole in this film and that pisses me off.
I'm now wondering how much this impression reflects a viewer's knowledge of Lee. For many, Bruce Lee was one of those pinnacle icons, "the Michael Jordan of..." However, I've read in a few bios and interviews with people connected with Lee that he would irritate co-workers with stories about how unbeatable he was and how he'd have to prove it all the time. Nobody wanted to test him because he was that good. They just didn't like the way he would wear it with bravado instead of humility. What Tarantino does in this fantasy-reality is create a character who might stand up to Lee and even knock him down. (Once. QT wisely leaves it open that if the fight continued, Cliff would probably lose.)

Bondo

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4058 on: January 15, 2020, 11:29:26 PM »
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
and boy are those last 20 minutes the most fun I've had with a Tarantino film in a long time.

I can’t wrap my head around this response. Those last 20 minutes are morally abhorrent. Not the  characters, but the actual filming of it and putting it out there. Gleeful violence against Nazis or slavers, sure, but trying to make brutal violence against women, even evil women, joyful is not a ride I want to be on. Took an unfocused but interesting C+ film and made it an F, worsted only by Joker.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #4059 on: January 16, 2020, 12:13:40 AM »
Take Out (2004)

More Sean Baker. It's a day in the life of an undocumented Chinese immigrants hustling as many meals to residents of New York to makeup the money he owns his loan sharks, keep from having his debt doubled and probably being severely beaten. High stakes. Super low-budget, cinema verite style with a handheld, a busy Chinese restaurant, and a dream. A little too much zooming for my liking, but the quick cuts and frenetic pace of the business in the restaurant keeps you "in there." It's raw, but well-structured, with some surprising elements, such as Ming (the delivery guy in debt) coming across a more Americanized Chinese-American youth in an ugly way, while also building a certain warmth among the more newly immigrated in the restaurant. There's also the repetition, the nonstop flow, and the outright nastiness of customers that are all involved in a regular day of Ming's life. This is another crucial issue Baker has taken on with grace, having gone lengths to even make sure it's in Mandarin and done right with co-writer and co-director Shih-Ching Tsou. A quality way to spend my Wednesday night.
A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire

 

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