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Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched (Jan 2011 - Nov 2013)  (Read 2532437 times)

flieger

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1680 on: February 06, 2011, 05:41:22 AM »

127 Hours (Danny Boyle, 2010)
James Franco is a star, and I found myself gripped and enthralled by the story. I just wasn't convinced by the cheap tricks and obvious cues, with the Requiem-esque expositional montages striking me as mostly vacuous and often facile. Sometimes they worked, but often they left me wanting just normal silence and breathing, or at least (for the love of God) normal water, food and equipment utilisation. Instead we get that fast-forwardy thing, or the ultra-closeup, or the inside-cam or… you get the point. That stuff left me wanting those moments of simple observation, like his bloodied finger sticking, for just a beat, to the shutter button. Then again, you sort of suspect that those moments are just as self-congratulatory as the whiz-bangery. In other words, the manipulation is where it sticks for me, with Boyle not letting go of the populist bug and not letting up with the visual or sound flourishes until I felt beat down and defeated. I'd rather watch a minimalist, trapped Franco stare at the camera, or caress the boulder and rock face for those few moments after he is trapped, than have Boyle add that sh*t.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2011, 05:43:44 AM by flieger »

Clovis8

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1681 on: February 06, 2011, 08:33:12 AM »
Antichrist was also a good movie, just like Dogtooth :)


indeed on both accounts.

tinyholidays

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1682 on: February 06, 2011, 09:28:16 AM »
The Goonies

HEY YOU GUYS! Today I met a real life Filmspotter. Her name is tinyholidays and she is super cool I also met her Canadian, and he's super cool as well.

We went to the Lightbox to watch The Goonies. Happy to say it was a packed house, and though there weren't too many kids, there were a fair amount. That was great to see. I don't usually like the phrase "they don't make 'em like they used to," but in this case it is totally appropriate. They just don't. Here you've got a kids movie where that opens on a scene in a prison where is looks like a man has hanged himself, and then during the title sequence there is a car chase/shootout and a young kid saying, "shit!" And parents, this is perfectly fine material for kids. Kids can handle it. There were several very young children who were audibly scared throughout different parts of the movie, but from what I could tell those same kids were also laughing and having a great time.

Of course, the reason is that The Goonies is a totally awesome kids movie, and it makes me really want Spielberg to start directing/producing this sort of kids flick again. I don't know much about Super 8, but it's very possible that will be a return to form.The movie is equal parts adventurous, silly, scary and heartwarming. It's very much told from the perspective of kids, and while the kids in the movie might be a little heightened, they come off as real. This is totally what young kids, especially young boys are like. It makes going through their adventure that much more fun. And seeing it on the big screen with an audience who are all in the exact same childish frame of mind is perfect.

Yay! It was great to meet FroHam as well and to talk to someone in person about Filmspots and Filmspotters and Brackets without having to go through twenty minutes of introductory explanation.

He also captures The Goonies wonderfully in the above paragraphs, so I'll only add that part of what makes the movie scary is that the kids know that the bad guys have actually murdered people. The Fratelli gang may be funny, but they aren't really bumbling.

FroHam X

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1683 on: February 06, 2011, 10:22:29 AM »
Well, the Fratelli's are kind of bumbling, but you're right, the present real menace. They have killed before and they don't mind killing again.
"We didn't clean the hamster's cage, the hamster's cage cleaned us!"

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zarodinu

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1684 on: February 06, 2011, 11:07:32 AM »
The Others

This is one of those woman-with-children-in-a-haunted-house films, alot like The Orphanage or The Innocents (best of the genre in my opinion).  This movie gets the atmosphere right, you get a creepy and vast old mansion with a neurotic Nicole Kidman keeping all the light out because the kids are sensitive to light.  You get the kids that communicate with The Others, and the creepy servants that know something Kidman and the audience do not.  The feel of the movie is just right, its creepy and constantly tense, but thankfully few jump scares.  Unfortunately as with all other films of this genre, the movie hinges on a big reveal, this worked in The Orphanage and The Innocents, and doesn't here because the director does not trust the audience and makes it obvious half way through the film, after this you are just waiting for the characters to catch up with what you already know.  Still a fun film.

7/10
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jbissell

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1685 on: February 06, 2011, 11:38:09 AM »
Life is Beautiful - I was dead certain I would hate this movie.  My fear was that at best, it would be sentimental tripe, and at worst, a highly offensive soft-pedaling of the Holocaust.  And it is both of those things... but only to a small degree.  What I was unprepared for is how well Benigni transcends these obstacles.  It definitely wasn't the atrocity I envisioned (something like what I imagine The Day the Clown Cried to be).  The film is really quite charming, often beautiful, and genuinely moving.  The first hour (before all the shit hits the fan, to put it lightly) is especially good, with Benigni's courtship of Nicoletta Braschi providing some really fine moments of humor (and a couple of not-so-fine ones, but they're easily overlooked).  Benigni seems a bit too delighted with himself, but he definitely has some talent for comedy, particularly in his use of callbacks.  Continuing the comedy into the second half it something that just shouldn't work, but he pulls it off, and for the most part balances the lightness and tragedy very well.  Admittedly, it's a fantasy version of a concentration camp, and it puts a bad taste in your mouth if you dwell on that fact too much.  But if you accept the movie on its own terms, it has its rewards.  Rating: 8

Wow, very surprised. I haven't seen it in years and really have no desire to revisit it, it left such a bad taste in my brain.

Four Lions Grade-A
I assume 8.5 out 10 means the same as an A.

Yeah, I guess if I were to translate to a letter grade it'd be A-/B+.

Corndog

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1686 on: February 06, 2011, 12:51:01 PM »
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe, 2010)

A year ago I submitted to myself to what was called the Mind Blowing marathon. It entailed me watching eight movies in quick succession that would drive me to lose my mind. The line-up was as follows: Mulholland Drive, Brazil, Barton Fink, Audition, Jacob's Ladder, Requiem for a Dream, Oldboy and Eraserhead. I also just watched Dogtooth the other night. So I am used to crazy, weird, outside the box type movies. My mind is used to it and I can really enjoy, or at least appreciate some of them. So when Enter the Void fell into my lap, I knew I was supposed to not go into it lightly, that it would be weird, bizarre and perhaps a little hard to handle.

The film follows Oscar, an American who has moved to Tokyo. In Tokyo, he lives with his sister Linda, who is a stripper. To make things stranger, Oscar is a drug addict who is dabbling in dealing. His friends, Alex and Victor, are shady characters as well. But that is not the story. No, the story is that Alex gets set up by Victor and shot and killed by the police. From there he enters "the void" and floats around observing the past, present, and future. It is original, I will give Noe that.

The problem I had with the film was the pacing, the editing. For being about what it is, and the style in which it is filmed, the film was amazingly boring. The POV style really got on my nerves after a while and it just drug along for so long. The film runs at nearly two and a half hours and most of that time is spent dragging its feet. It is a lot of mindless dialogue that half the time you can't hear and following along behind the characters as they walk places. I hated the camera too. The stylized moves from location to location gave me headaches and really took me out of the experience.

Some people may be able to gain some enjoyment from the film, but it was way too haphazard for my tastes. The ending of the film was annoying too. I am not sure if it is possible to spoil it, but it was basically various people having sex for about 30 minutes. It was so annoying I just wanted to punch the movie in the face. I really could have slept through this one and would have had a better time. I know, I just didn't get it. It happens sometimes. And sometimes, filmmakers make bad movies.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2011, 01:39:07 PM by Corndog »
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Thor

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1687 on: February 06, 2011, 01:33:02 PM »
So I guess no one was able to stop this becoming a thread where people just link to their blogs?

(Isn't there already a thread for that?)
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Tequila

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1688 on: February 06, 2011, 01:41:27 PM »
I complained about that a few years ago but no one listened.

I think Bill has the right idea:

Indigènes (Days Of Glory, 2006) ***1/2

The World War II Marathon is close to being done, and what better way to start the final four films than with French injustice,

Quote
Good versus evil, black and white, nary a shade of gray to be seen. The great majority of film goers, and even the great majority of humans period, tend to think of war in this way. There has to be a good guy and a bad guy, a force to root for and a force to cheer against. In no war has this way of thinking been more prevalent than in World War II, it was the greatest crusade against evil that the modern world has seen, depending on who you ask. Therein lies the hidden truth of the war against Nazism, the good guys weren’t always good and the bad guys weren’t always bad. Some movies present this truth in the form of ambiguity, but rare is the movie that presents the great hidden truth of the most easily labeled modern war from the perspective of the good guys being quite bad.

Read the rest, here.

Excerpt, rating, link to the blog. This works for me and judging by his numbers, it works for him too.
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Clovis8

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #1689 on: February 06, 2011, 01:45:16 PM »
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe, 2010)


The problem I had with the film was the pacing, the editing. For being about what it is, and the style in which it is filmed, the film was amazingly boring.

Indeed. It is so painfully boring as to defy explanation. It has to be endured to be believed.

 

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