Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched (Jan 2011 - Nov 2013)  (Read 2532719 times)

Melvil

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18580 on: May 17, 2013, 12:01:30 AM »
Glad you caught up with this one. Wish more people watched this back in the day. Could have been a Debut feature for filmspots contender.

Yeah, I regret ignoring the praise it received back when, frankly something about the title/poster had put me off, but obviously that judgement was without merit. :)

oldkid

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18581 on: May 17, 2013, 01:25:26 AM »
The Mortal Storm

Borzage is the master of melodrama, and who better to produce the forerunner to many of the best dramas that take place in Nazi Germany.  I could see this movie's touch on many other great films: The Sound of Music, Cabaret and Schindler's List among others.  Yet this film both deserves to stand with those films and is to be honored as a special film in it's own right.

The surprising thing is that despite it being a melodrama about Nazi Germany, there is almost not a single stereotypical character, or a character that doesn't have its own strengths and weaknesses.  There are bad guys, but the biggest evil is narrow minded ideology, or fundamentalism as we call it today.  Truly, this is an honest film and a bold one at any time, let alone a year before the U.S. entered WWII.  It is clearly anti-Nazi, but all the characters are German, whether good or bad or mixed.  And many of the Nazis are sympathetic.  Even though this was made before the propogandistic push of later years, it is still a strong statement.

In comparing it to the other Borzage films I've seen, it hits the same notes of effective melodrama.  I knew the scene with the bridal cup was coming, but when it came it still got dusty in the room.  I didn't expect the end, though I could have. 

Great filmmaking.  Actually, I had a great day with film.

4.5/5
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Serious_Delirium

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18582 on: May 17, 2013, 01:43:36 AM »
3 Women   (1977)

The "dream" language Altman uses here sets a unique mood and atmosphere right from the opening title sequence. I thought the film was fascinating, if rather confusing, so it will probably warrant multiple viewings to be fully appreciated. Surely it has its flaws but that doen't mean it's not worth watching. Believe me, it is. Definitely recommended.

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Lobby

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18583 on: May 17, 2013, 01:55:35 AM »
Endearing time travelling with only natural sweeteners

In food labelling, they always list the ingredients after how much there is of it in the product. (You might want to think twice before informing yourself. Do you really want to know that sugar is the second biggest ingredient in your favourite müsli?)

For some movies the genre declaration at IMDb works the same way, and this is the case of Safety Not Guaranteed. Comedy, romance and science fiction, in that order. But the science fiction part is small, just an added touch of flavour.

You might think there would have been more of it, considering it’s a movie about time-travelling. There’s this man who claims that he has built a machine that helps you go back in time. When he advertises for a partner to go with him, this catches the attention of a magazine, which decides to write an article about him. A team is sent out to hunt him down, convinced that he’s either a fraud or crazy. The main story is about the developments between one of the team members and the man with the time machine, but there are also a couple of unrelated side stories about what her co-workers are up to while she’s doing the tracking.

What the stories have in common is that all of them are about the necessity of taking a leap of faith once in a while in your life. With no leaps of faith, you won’t get laid, you can’t fall in love and you’ll never get to travel in time.

Natural sweeteners
I really loved this little film. It’s kind of sweet and endearing, but never overly so. I think they’ve only used natural sweeteners, no artificial ones. It’s yet another example of how good the writing means a great deal more for the end result than the size of the budget.

Sometimes movies about journeys in time can make your brain fry as you’re struggling to keep up with the timelines, as in the case of Primer, where I had no clue at all about what was going on. This movie is a lot easier in that aspect, but managed to give my mind at least a little bit of tickling, enough to make me wake up at 2.30 in the night with a snap: “wait here, so THAT’S what happened, of course!”

The insight made me giggle and I had to suppress an impulse to wake up my daughter who had watched it with me to share my findings. When I told her the next morning, she agreed on my conclusion about the movie, but even more on my decision to let her sleep.

The question is: did I? What if I had made a time machine…?

Safety Not Guaranteed (Colin Trevorrov, US 2012) My rating: 4/5
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18584 on: May 17, 2013, 09:45:25 AM »
The Mortal Storm
Glad you watched this one. It's one of Borzage's best, but then most of them are pretty great!

Junior

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18585 on: May 17, 2013, 11:53:12 AM »
The Mortal Storm
Glad you watched this one. It's one of Borzage's best, but then most of them are pretty great!

Word. Another movie ending in snow. Nothing better.
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smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18586 on: May 17, 2013, 04:51:21 PM »
Continuing the Lethal Weapon conversation...


Probably because it's only like 15 seconds long. :)

Quote
I like your "spidey sense" analogy. I totally feel it, and in a scene like the exploding house I love it because you know something unexpected is about to happen, but you're still not expecting something on that scale.

I would like to take your instant kill one compliment further. Not only is there no cradle in arms death scene, it's Murtaugh who gets off the final terse line. "You got off easy, you son of a bitch!" That's a cold goodbye to a murder victim who was his friend when the film started.

Nice edge to that.

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I haven't gotten to Tremors yet in my mini-reviews, but let me say I'm completely in your corner on the Bacon/Ward chemistry. They are a hoot and a half and the film is one of my most quoted. It's not the lines, it's the constantly brilliant delivery by everybody. "I got a goddamn plan!"

Very animated delivery :))

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I'm glad you don't plan to wait too long for Lethal Weapon 2. It addresses some of your concerns. That being said, there are two things I am very nervous about, one of those being Joe Pesci's performance. I loved it, but he so beat it into the ground afterwards it made me retroactively hate him when I go back to 2. Be sure to post when you watch it, because I will revisit it as well. A nice warm-up to our Resident Evil Marathon perhaps?

Yeah, that's sounds about right. :)

I've seen Pesci in exactly 4 films. Three were by Scorsese and the other was Home Alone. He's been a positive asset in each. Hopefully they don't over-use him here.

Devil

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18587 on: May 17, 2013, 11:25:16 PM »

.... And my imagination

Jurassic Park (1993) Steven Spielberg - Every time I watch this film I worry that this will be the instance it slips from the number one spot on my all time list. Then we get to the first dinosaur reveal with the Brachiosaurus and I'm smiling like I was the first time I saw it at age 10 and know that it's position is safe. Getting to see it in Imax (and 3D which along with being my first 3D film didn't really make a significant difference in my opinion) was incredible. The T-Rex attack was as hair raising as ever and the Tyrannosaurus roar sent chills down my spine accompanied with a surprising amount of anxiety for a scene I've seen countless times. Almost precisely twenty years since my initial viewing(and who knows how many in between) 29 year old me got to spend two hours in the shoes of the 10 year old boy who was utterly floored the first time I visited Jurassic Park.

10/10
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Bondo

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18588 on: May 17, 2013, 11:46:30 PM »
That is basically my review only I had turned 30 by the time I saw the 3D re-release ;D

oldkid

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #18589 on: May 18, 2013, 09:55:53 AM »
Man on the Moon



Man on the Moon is the biopic of a freak.  Jim Carey seems like a great choice to play Andy Kaufman, but it is clear that while Jim Carey is interested in, and is generally talented in, entertaining others, Andy Kaufman was primarily only interested in entertaining himself (or at least that's how the movie portrays him).

I remember a lot of these stunts Andy Kaufman presented: The inter-gender wrestling champion, the Elvis skit, and, of course, Latka.  So I already knew Kaufman as a freak of nature.  But this movie's portrayal of Kaufman blew my mind.

The movie in done entertainingly, beginning with the breaking of the fourth wall and moving on from there. It would be a pretty traditional biopic, if Kaufman weren't such a unique individual.  But some of the choices they made for casting was just brilliant.  When I saw Danny Devito, (who played with Kaufman in Taxi, and the duo provided some of the show's stellar moments), playing his agent speaking to Jim Carey playing Kaufman, it was brilliant.  The script pulls a couple surprises, leaving us wondering what is real and what isn't.  Events happened, but what was really the motivation, what was really playacting?

In the end, with some of the twists, I was reminded of the film American Splendor, which I consider a better film, but Man on the Moon still has some great moments.  4/5
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

 

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