current film strut
ketan
Warmly booming riffs 3,180 Posts
What have you seen of late that has your sox knoc'd?
What's good in Hollywud?
What's good in Hollywud?
Comments
Really enjoyed it, think it had some serious shit to say about maintaining a connection not only to your family, but to humanity in general, especially when you're in a job that removes it from you - which seems to be the case for more and more jobs these days. But it was still funny, in a "the Office" kind of way. I wasn't rolling but it kept me onboard for the whole duration, which is an achievement I think.
Watched the first 3 hour chunk of Made in America on BBC, started the second, gave up on the gruesome murder shit. I remember that stuff too well from the first time around, but the first part with the background of his career, how he treated his success as an escape from responsibilities to the community he grew up in, how his attitude seemed to be that he could get away with anything, and putting all that in the historical context of what was happening with civil rights, black athletes taking political stands, and the LAPD, all that stuff was great and newer to me as I was too young to know all the background when the trial went down.
A few that come to the top of my mind.
Moonlight. Sing Street. The Nice Guys. Kubo and the Two Strings.
I'm looking to check out Logan. T2 Trainspotting. Dunkirk.
I did see Toni Erdmann and it was silly af. The first hour drags a bit, but loved it in the end.
I dunno if Mubi's selection is the same worldwide, I imagine so, but compared to Netflix etc.
Saw Get Out too and it was a riot. Such a great Rosemary's Baby vibe.
On that same flight I caught up with a few others I'd been meaning to watch -
Hell or High Water, which was good and made me wanna check out more from the same director, but not the next-level stuff some critics were calling it.
La La Land - it was fine, not worth a best picture nor a "backlash". Even if this was the movie Damien Chazelle WANTED to make when he made Whiplash instead, Whiplash is better.
Moonlight - latte pass, but it was really, really good and not in the artsy hard-to-watch way. The way people have been talking about it makes it sound like a chore, like "Crash" or other Best Picture bait that was half about feeling proud that you got through it as a viewer, but Moonlight is totally not that, really watchable, character-driven, story-driven, not stupid with aesthetics shitting all over the story, but also not workmanlike. Had a distinctive visual touch still.
In other news, I finally, finally, saw Rogue One. What an entertaining film - ropey Cushing CGI apart it was fun from beginning to end and showed you can balance fan service without having to constantly labour the point.
They have invented Hyperspace, yet lack email.
Incredible-but-true story. Hits very hard if you have kids yourself.
I already couldn't tell you the plot but the obvious love the filmmakers have for their subject shone through. Managed to be very funny without the continuing snark of Deadpool. I really liked it.
Also, the film is stupendously gorgeous. A proper psychedelic mix of neon and mushroom trips.
As someone with no connection to the core material, I personally enjoyed it more than the first one. Also, I have time for any film that makes Michael Rooker one of its leads.
Logan is about as far down my watch list as I can get. I really could do without ever seeing another "dark" superhero movie.
would also add that all of the "serious" film buffs I know all really enjoyed Logan too.
Funnily enough, apart from the obvious Society comparisons it actually also reminded me a bit of The People Under The Stairs (movie not Thes related).
Both those documentaries are ultra essential (especially Workingman's Death), cold, voice-over-free, observational films with something serious to say about the future of the world.
Contact High is a stoner comedy caper movie where every character with a speaking part either is on mushrooms or is acting like it, which ends when, with nothing resolved, all the protagonists and antagonists and also everybody in the world get high as fuck together. I have never in my life experienced such a difference in directorial style, genre, tone, aesthetic, everything between two movies by the same director. I dare anybody to watch WD and Contact High and name a director who made two more different movies. Very enjoyable, if half for the surprise.
david gordon green goes from george washington/joe/prince avalanche to your highness/pineapple express stuff, and masters all of it, i think. but props to this other guy for crossing the fiction/non-fiction barrier.