On vacation, caught up on some movies I hadnt seen yet The Social Network Game Night Blue Mountain State: The rise of Thad (or whatever the subtitle was) What happens in Vegas Had 2 more in the flights but forgot which ones
1. Won’t You Be My Neighbor 2. Isle of Dogs 3. Hereditary 4. Rocky Horror Picture Show 5. Enter the Dragon 6. Solo (unfortunately)
1. ANT-MAN & THE WASP 2. SICARIO DAY OF THE SOLDADO 3. JURASSIC WORLD 4. WAR OF ARROWS (Directed by Han-Min Kim - Probably the best Bow fights in cinema) 5. INCREDIBLES 2 6. DRAGON (Asian version of HISTORY OF VIOLENCE with Donnie Yen)
1. Invaders From Mars (1986) 2. Gentlemen Broncos 3. Basic 4. Ready Player One 5. Animal House 6. The Core
Before Sunrise - 8.2: Our first installment of the trilogy lays the groundwork for our journey with Jesse and Celine, though it is still my least favorite of the three films. I suppose I am more interested in the evolution of relationships than their genesis. Before Sunset - 8.5: The second installment brings our characters back together after 9 years apart. Hawke and Delpy continue to have excellent chemistry, and Linklater continues to show his incredible range as a director, creating such a delicate and rather non-American film. He isn't my favorite director, but he might be the living director that I find most interesting. Before Midnight - 8.9: The final installment (and again, we are 9 years later), and my favorite of the three. By this point, the characters are so developed, natural, and lived-in, and its fascinating to see where the relationship stands and how it has changed over the course of time. Down by Law - 9.3: Odds are that if you put Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni, and John Lurie into any situation together I will totally love it, but Jim Jarmusch mixing in a prison break and the Louisiana swamps just takes it to another level. Waits and Lurie play a dj and a pimp that are set up for their crimes, and Benigni an Italian tourist that becomes their cellmate, and all three deliver great work on their journey together. 8 1/2 - 9.7: Pretty much perfect, and the greatest film about filmmaking that has ever been done. Marcello Mastroianni delivers one of the greatest performances ever put on film, and we get to explore Fellini's headspace and get a viewpoint into his self-examinations, as we often do with his work. The Color of Pomegranates - NR: I don't feel as though it is fair to rank this on a rather conventional 10 point scale, as this work is anything but conventional (and really hardly anything much like an actual narrative film). Sergei Parajanov presents the life of Sayat-Nova, an 18th century Armenian poet/musician, but instead of giving us a biopic (or something relating to a structured narrative, at the very least), he creates a visual poem representing Sayat-Nova's life, and does it by creating a series of tableaux that give us a thematic and visual expression of the poet's life. Utterly fascinating, and rather incomprehensible without a cursory understanding of Armenian tradition and the poet's work and life. We get plenty of Christian allegory and traditional Armenian culture and some breathtaking visuals and captivating choices. Well worth a watch and I fully recommend it, just know ahead of time what you are getting yourself into.
Pretty upset at my recent movies. There are some movies I didn’t enjoy at all so I can’t even remember the names enough to add them. Room- 5.5. meh. Predictable and slow. Cold in July- 7.2 Michael C. Hall kills a robber and is quickly threatened by the robbers dad. But something just isn’t adding up! I really enjoyed him as a Texan Set it up- 6.0. Solid rom com nothing great but nothing terrible Creep- 9.8 my favorite horror movie ever Creep 2- 9.5 i liked it almost just as much. Want to rewatch both to be honest Fracture- 8.1. Really good movie
The Fisher King - 8.3: Terry Gilliam's most accessible film, but I prefer much of his other work. Still, it features a tremendous Robin Williams performance and provides strong characters pieces for its cast. This is one of those interesting Jeff Bridges roles that have taken on a different perception as his career has changed post Big Lebowski. It's just a completely different person. L.A. Confidential - 8.7: I can always fuck with 1950s Los Angeles as a setting for a film, especially for any noir-style shit. Some great performances up and down the cast, highlighted by Basinger, Guy Pearce, and James Cromwell, and great storytelling and structure, blending all of the disparate worlds of the time. Mystic River - 7.8: As I've mentioned in these spaces before, I can take or leave a lot of Eastwood's work as a director, though this mostly works. Really well acted (Bill Murray should have won for Lost in Translation instead of Penn, though), and the film does a great job of demonstrating the impacts of trauma and pain throughout the course of relationships and life. Fight Club - 8.5: Certainly a film of its time, but it isn't nearly as dated as I thought it would be. The most dated aspects are in some of the ancillary portions of the film - soundtrack, special effects, credits, etc. I think it definitely would have aged much more poorly in the hands of a less capable director. As Good as it Gets - 8.6: I prefer Broadcast News, but this is still masterful work from James L. Brooks. One of the last great Jack Nicholson performances, and its his natural charm and charisma that gets you to still root for this supreme dickhead. I would say that the road movie elements work much better than the romantic comedy elements. The Lives of Others - 8.8: Didn't have much business beating Pan's Labyrinth for Best Foreign Language Film, but this is still quite good. A man of good working inside an evil apparatus isn't the most original of ideas, but is executed well enough here that it still works. In this case, we get the story of a Stasi agent monitoring a playwright in 1980s East Germany.
Watched Mississippi Grind tonight. Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn. 90% on RT Good flick, one of the indies that Reynolds like to do pretty often. Critics love it, general audience is pretty meh on it, but it’s really well acted and keeps the attention, even though it can be a bit slow.
The Hidden Fortress - 9.5: Watch this shit so you can know where George Lucas bites his ideas from. And obviously Kurosawa is just way better at his job, so you get even more rewards. The Tree of Life - 9.3: I so know this isn't for everybody, but I just love Terrence Malick so much. Visually stunning (as all his work is) and enough to unwrap that you find can find and interpret something new upon each viewing. As bad as it was that something as empty as The Artist beat this for Best Picture, Chivo Lubezki not winning for his photography on this film is the real tragedy. Othello (1952) - 9.7: I fuck with any and all Orson Welles Shakespeare shit, although here we have to look past Welles playing Othello (since it is shot in black and white its a bit easier). Great performances from Welles and Micheál Mac Liammóir as Iago (Welles makes an interesting choice in casting the role with an older actor), and obviously the story is great. The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun - 7.5: Short film about a young Senegalese girl on crutches that enters the street newspaper sales game. Film does not cover if there is any relation to The Man Who Sold the World. Othello (1955) - 9.7: See above, but mix in a few different editing changes for American audiences. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - 8.7: Anthology works like this are a little more difficult to grade, since you have to balance out the sum of parts in order to reach a comprehensive decision. Anyway, most of this works very well ("Near Algodones" and "The Gal Who Got Rattled" have their moments, but are mostly forgettable compared to the others), and the format allows for easy repeated viewings of the best segments. Classic Coens in that they are able to get wonderful work even out the smallest of roles (The Trapper in "The Mortal Remains" immediately leaps to mind here) and create a bevy of memorable characters. Between "The Mortal Remains" and the Dybbuk scene in A Serious Man, I desperately need a feature length Coen Brothers ghost story.
I watched Chinatown for the first time last night (I know, spare me)....and it had the worst ending of any movie in the history of civilization. Change my mind Incredible move for 95% of it but holy fuck at the ending
I watched Molly’s Game tonight. I liked it, 8/10. Totally have a thing for Jessica Chastain. Also, hilarious and not all that surprising that Player X is Tobey Maguire.
Just saw 2001 on the big screen for the first time ever. God damn. Could easily turn right back around and sit through a second screening if I had the choice
Also just bought Hard to Be a God. Should be interesting. I’ll be up in this thread pretty heavy after taking a long ass hiatus from watching things at any serious level; I’ve got quite the queue stacked up.
Who, if anyone, has seen the following movies (and how was it?).... 1. The Sisters Brothers 2. Upgrade 3. Replicas 4. The Family Fang 5. Beautiful Boy (Amazon Prime) 6. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (Netflix) 7. The Hate U Give 8. The Rider 9. Leave No Trace I think all but The Family Fang are 2018.
How I got into college - 3.5/5 late 80’s movie starring Goose from Top Gun and a pre-anorexic Lara Flynn Boyle about the trials and tribulations of getting into a private Pennsylvania college LEGO Movie 2 - 3.6/5 sequels are sequels and they mostly disappoint. Chuckled a few times but it’s a big bag of meh overall Baby Driver - 4.3/5 still watchable as fuck, killer soundtrack Forgetting Sarah Marshall - 3.7/5 watched again for the upcoming Rewatchables podcast. Not a fan of cringe humor and found myself skipping ahead at uncomfortable scenes. Paul Rudd kills in this flick Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - 4.8/5 my third watch of this flick...damn near flawless The Thing (‘82) 4.1/5 vintage John Carpenter, classic Kurt Russell...Antarctic tentacle porn is still scary as fuck, had to watch an episode or two of Golden Girls afterwards to calm down
Got down a rabbit hole today and found out that sources from those games estimate he made about $1M a month for three years.
Border The Dirt Captain Marvel Won't You Be My Neighbor Spiderverse They Shall Not Grow Old Chinatown is awesome, including the end. If you want a shitty ending, watch No Country for Old Men
Watched The Great Escape tonight on a lark. Love that movie Shazam! was solid and fun Pet Sematary was fine, occasionally good and occasionally mediocre The Descent is one of the best horror movies of the millennium Inglorious Basterds never gets old The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Anderson's best movie
Surprised I haven't posted on this thread more - I tend to watch a lot of movies. Although traditionally, not a lot at the start of each year as the pickings are usually quite slim. Here's what I've seen in 2019: Glass - Better than some of the shitty reviews suggested, though still the weakest of the trilogy. A little talky and took a while to get going, plus I didn't like what happened to the main characters, but a solid flick overall. 7/10 Happy Death Day 2U - Enjoyed it for what it was: the sequel to a weird little horror movie. The alternate reality thing was both frustrating and a plausable explanation for what was going on. Odd but fun. 7/10 Alita: Battle Angel - Not bad. I had no idea what this was about until I watched it - I was just looking for something to see while waiting for Captain Marvel to come down in price. But it was really well done with a bunch of good performances - a charming little sci fi flick. 8/10 Captain Marvel - Frankly I was expecting more. For me, this was the white, female version of Black Panther - interesting set up with some nice enough characters, but quite the flawed movie and another ending with really sloppy SFX. Not terrible, just a wasted opportunity. 7.5/10 Us - Now we're goddamn talking. Didn't know what to expect as I avoided spoilers and I don't think I even saw the trailer... but this was goooood. Thought it was going in one direction but then blew my mind about halfway through. Best horror movie since Cabin in the Woods and the Evil Dead remake. 8.5/10 Shazam! - Hmm. Saw this one this morning. Hmm. Really wanted to like it and it was fun for the most part, but it didn't quite deliver if I'm being honest. Performances were fine, tone was about right, but I thought the material was a bit thin and they tried to squeeze too much juice out of not enough lemons. Good, but like CM, a bit of a wasted op. 7.5/10
No, I don't. I'm very particular about which movies I spend money on at the cinema, so I generally don't see many dogs - none so far this year, thank god. And though it sounded like I had several criticisms of some of those above, all of them were quality movies in their own right that deserve those grades - I just didn't want to write "this was really good" for each one of them because that would be boring. For instance, I was really expecting a lot from CM and Shazam (as in 9/10) but they fell a bit short of my high expectations and just got 7.5 instead.
Anyone seen Life Like? I started watching it.... Jury still out, but think I'll end up giving it 2/5 -- it's a nice spin on a tired plot, but it's falling wildly short for me atm.
She's hot. After about 30 minutes of the movie -- she's the worst, but I think she's supposed to be a good guy? I can't tell. She sucks though.