What an absolute crock of shit. Terrible performances by the leads and, Foxx apart, not much better by the supporting case (hungry hands Spacey looked visibly embarrassed). Leaden storytelling, clothes brand soundtrack and clumsy pastich characterisation.
Bunch of shite.
Also watched Personal Shopper.
Greatly enjoyed this, wasn't sure what to expect but actually, ghosts apart, it felt most like a character study - as much inside the head as out of it. Wasn't perfect by any means, particularly some of the heavy handed dialogue, but Stewart was genuinely amazing.
Started Baby Driver, won’t finish it. Guessing Spacey will now be pleading for work like this...
:(
I expect him to start appearing in Woody Allen productions shortly. Maybe a Polanski or two.
I did enjoy his toupee anyway. I'll be sad to see the end of the hairpieces.
I actually didn't watch the last twenty minutes and just looked up the ending on Wikipedia. Can't say I feel like I missed much. Drive did it all better.
I finally saw "Chasing Trane" and "Beware Mr. Baker." Trane as expected, Baker as unsettling as was reported. I haven't seen the Lee Morgan film yet, but it is on my list. I also still haven't seen "Whiplash," even though I bought the DVD a year ago. It's around here somewhere...
Most recent classic we watched (sort of antithetical to the thread, I know) was "The Hustler." Still a great movie. Most recent blockbuster was "Black Panther" (see: Black Panther thread)...
Re Baby Driver... As soon as the main character goes straight from his 15-cop warehouse bloodbath to meet with his cute love interest in her cute diner, I was like... nah. Then he comes to the diner pursued by loads of cops for a bloody robbery and she's like "I'm with you, even though you never mentioned you bloodbath cops and rob banks for a living and I'm just a waitress" and hops in... come on man write a character.
And on a personal note as an editor I get really annoyed at the way people discuss Baby Driver. People talking like it deserved an Oscar for that. It is not a "well-edited" movie. It was well-previsualized and well-blocked to execute the "action on beats" synchronization, but what that means is the edit was already done by the director before anything was shot and no meaningful choices could be made with the footage in the edit. Let alone the fact that good editing should be hard to pinpoint. If it distracts you enough that you notice it on first viewing (or indeed if most untrained eyes notice there was something going on with the editing at all) then it's not really doing what it's supposed to. Moments of counterpoint, sure, but having the whole thing feel like a music video isn't effective, storytelling editing. I can grant that it's an experiment but it's a little like "I am watching an experiment in editing" and not so much like "wow that movie swept me away in its story, action, and characters and I don't even know what was done technically to achieve it!"
Greatly enjoyed this, wasn't sure what to expect but actually, ghosts apart, it felt most like a character study - as much inside the head as out of it. Wasn't perfect by any means, particularly some of the heavy handed dialogue, but Stewart was genuinely amazing.
Yeah, nice little head-scratcher at the end too. It wasn't at all what I expected but I liked it.
Finally saw I, Daniel Blake, which measured up.
Mother! is almost unwatchable but hard to stop watching, at the same time. I might actually watch it a 2nd time now that I've read up on it a bit more.
Mountains May Depart was really interesting. Many reviewers have a problem with the third act, but I wasn't bothered by it.
Girls Trip is sooooo funny. Can't believe they put in the bit about the grapefruit bj.
Also to stretch the boundaries of this thread, Finding Frances - the feature-length last episode of Nathan For You - is hilarious and basically a documentary.
3 Billboards - best film I’ve watched so far this year.
Has anybody watched The Killing Of A Sacred Deer? It’s by the same dude who made Teh Lobster, which was an absolute mind-fuck, so I’ve avoided this new one.
Baby Driver is such a turd. No joke, I lasted about 10 minutes. It kind of serves as a litmus test for people that I would want to hang with. It's like they tapped into the private mind garden of a 15 year old boy to write this. What a cringe-fest. There must be a lot of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers on the studio's payroll.
The Endless is proper indie thriller. Very original. Explores "psycho death cults".
Oh, also Lowlifes. Whoa. Over the top but ultimately way more human than Pulp Fiction (which it's getting comparisons to). Careful who you watch it with - most people will not be able to handle it.
i liked three billboards a fair amount - the story, the acting and the overall tone, in particular. some great lines, but i thought the writing was weak, compared to some of his other work (and compared to his bro-bro's writing - mindgarden sibling rivalry-r).
speaking of which, i'm going to watch War On Everyone this weekend. any reviews?
War On Everyone, I saw at (I think) the UK premiere with the director there. It is absolutely no mystery to me why 3 Billboards garnered so much recognition and War On Everyone didn't. It's a kind of love or hate thing. I liked it and forgave its weirdness. It's a pretty mixed bag, with some really funny scenes and writing, and also slightly shambling plotting and pace and kind of unsure tone - it's funny, it's violent, but is it a black comedy or is there other genres in there too (like with 3 Billboards)? But Michael Pena is great and I'd rather both brothers keep making films so please give it yer money and give it a try.
3 Billboards - best film I’ve watched so far this year.
Has anybody watched The Killing Of A Sacred Deer? It’s by the same dude who made Teh Lobster, which was an absolute mind-fuck, so I’ve avoided this new one.
Yeah I watched it at the cinema.
It's a more straightforward film than The Lobster but it definitely fucks with your mind anyway. I think it's more consistent as an overall film but less funny.
After watching it I felt ok but it's kind of become more and more depressing in retrospect. Having said that, I really enjoyed it and it's also aesthetically great - lots of Kubrick-style beautifully framed scenes in sterilised environments.
I'm bringing this shit back cause I've been to MOVIES this month.
October movies I saw in the theater: Beanpole - based around a great book (Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War), but departs heavily from the non-fiction accounts in the book, which I think wasn't a bad idea to do. An extremely intense portrayal of severely broken people - female soldiers in the Soviet Army (i.e. actual artillerywomen etc.) returning to normal life. Really good and harsh.
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project - Documentary wherein an activist decides to record 24 hour tv on all broadcast channels for like 30 years straight, to have a record of American discourse during that time. her tapes are thankfully making it to archive.org, where hopefully loads of projects will utilize this insane resource.
The Climb - a comedy about the type of friendship where one friend continually ruins the other's life. This was shot in 12 long takes, so unlike the current wave of big comedy films, there is zero improv looseness, it's tight and rehearsed and importantly, cinematic for once. Like, they weren't shooting 6 hours of mucking about from a wide master angle, they really had to choreograph camera and performance together. Nice to see that, and they pulled it off well.
Days of the Bagnold Summer - forgettable UK comedy about a sullen metalhead son hanging with his librarian mother for a summer. big laughs from the (british) crowd, bigger than I thought it deserved. maybe they just like their own. felt lightweight.
The Whistlers - Romanian crime black comedy set half in Bucharest, half in the Canary Islands, where a crooked cop learns la silba (the whistling language) to help in a kidnapping back home. It makes zero sense why they'd do that and not just like phone each other, or buy walkie talkies, but what do I know about kidnappings. Interesting and I'm glad I saw it, but not funny enough for me.
Overseas - documentary about overseas Filipino workers in a training center to be sent out, government approved and encouraged, to be exploited and sometimes worse, by rich foreigners - nicely lets them tell their own stories to each other mainly, not a polemical muckracking voiceover-laden crusade but a nicely observed bunch of true stories.
The Last Black Man In San Francisco - gentrification, family history, what home means, all being treated with an indie but not annoyingly indie touch, this one felt close to my heart as it's about my home too. I feel like I need to watch it again. It's great. Fuck. It's a reminder that SF (and probably everybody else's hometown) is a slow motion tragedy everyone sees and experiences but feels powerless to avert.
Monos - a mix of Lord of the Flies and Come and See - a war movie from the eyes of children, who are also its perpetrators. Set in incredible locations: above the clouds in the Andes in a ruined concrete fort, and then deep in the jungle. An adult prisoner is held by a slowly disintegrating unit of child soldiers. Mica Levi soundtrack was really special. Whole thing was harrowing but didn't descend into schlock torture/gratuitous violence.
i agree with scorsese on this to some extent, but there are exceptions of course. that last spiderman with all the animation and the bizarro plot was pretty tite, and there are a few others i rate. but yeah, it's usually pretty safe.
saw parasite for the second time yesterday. it really is fascinating. i feel like i got a bit more insight from the experience, but that i could easily watch it another time to really soak it all in. anyone else seen it?
Parasite's on my list, I've heard nothing but good things about it.
Scorsese, I'm too lazy to set up reading the damn NYT website but I remember his initial quote, roughly, and pretty much agree. Safe is the word. I actually did see that spiderman you're talking about and enjoyed it, but it did feel a lot like candy I didn't have to follow too hard. Just look at the flashing pictures. I generally can't find time for the others because the flashing pictures weren't as out there. I think I've said before I pretty much made a rule after Daredevil 2004 that I wasn't gonna spend time on superheros, despite having read comics when I was younger. Everytime somebody convinced me to give one a try because "this one is different" - every year there's one that is different - it wasn't different enough. I saw the Heath Ledger joker one, Guardians of the Galaxy and one or two others so I think I'm not completely out of touch.
Like, by way of example, I've found some enjoyment in pretty much everything Taika Waititi makes, and feel a bit of adopted national pride in what he's accomplished (and having met the dude, NZ tv/film being such a tiny world). And I had loads of friends recommend his Thor movie too. So I started streaming it and had to give up after 20 minutes. It must've had some touches of his humor and so on, but again, not different enough.
The standard quality of those things is so bland it's like eating plain oatmeal or grits or something. This one's different, it's got a single raisin. Why spend my time on that when I can watch 8 movies in the theatre in a single month last month and have the variety of experiences I had, and not a boring one among them? I wanna clarify I watch action movies and sci-fi and other genres too, just that every Marvel movie/superhero movie feels like a bad hybrid of a long running TV series and a standalone film. Like Scorsese says, missing "mystery, revelation or genuine emotional danger".
I'd be interested on Scorsese's thoughts on Joker and see if he lumps it and the usual comicbook movie together.
I find it odd to read Scorsese when he's just about to release a mob movie with De Niro, Pacino and Pesci. That said. I'm really looking forward to seeing The Irishman.
I find it odd to read Scorsese when he's just about to release a mob movie with De Niro, Pacino and Pesci. That said. I'm really looking forward to seeing The Irishman.
I thought that too. But the praise for this one is really OTT - "best Scorsese in 30 years" etc! So maybe he's found a new angle...
went to a screening of Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story a few days ago. Pretty good. The performances are all pretty amazing. I like Baumbach's stuff, although I haven't seen everything. From what I've seen he's pretty consistent though. I'm fine with Woody Allen not making any more movies and just having Baumbach fill that space.
haven't seen marriage story yet - haven't watched a baumbach in ages actually. missed everything after frances ha (which was great). i will have to czech this one. what else did i miss in the last few?
the lighthouse is truly wow. heavy guy maddin vibes but still really watchable somehow. :slow burner: i didn't see the witch - another one i've got to catch up on now for sure.
The dusk forest scenes capture that light amazingly. Mhadd Christmas vibezzz, kiddos!
Watched and enjoyed. I had a particular laugh at the scene with the school teacher pleading with the kids: “if I teach you something, will you go home?”
Star Wars - It was fine I guess. I went because my son is 11 and the perfect age for it so of course I had to take him. I dozed in and out through most of it. I think I'm starting to be a movie snob? I just can't seem to care what happens to anybody in this movie and some of the dialog was atrocious. One good thing - the special effects on the emperor's face was cool. Super creepy. For a second I was like "oh shit - are we getting dark?" but then nope. Same old stuff.
*spoilers.... i guess* The movie title doesn't make sense until the end and random lady says "what's your last name" and other Rey says "uhhhhh..... hmmmm.... Skywalker?" and ROLL CREDIT. So essentially the movie has nothing to do with the title, and the title is fucking meaningless anyways. Rey rose 3 movies ago, not in this movie. It's like the came up with a title that sounded cool and then had to justify it so they threw in some bullshit scene at the end. *end spoilers (that didn't really spoil anything)*
Irishman - Yes it was long but so what? you are at home so you can pause it. Turn it into a 4-part mini-series if you must. I thought it was fantastic
Once upon a time in hollywood. Once upon a time in san diego old uncle dizzy was bored. Dizzy wondered if he was watching the same movie that all the reviewers were calling a masterpiece and tarantino's magnum opus? Because surely it takes more than period accurate set pieces to be a masterpiece.
J Lo stripper Movie - whatever that was called. Again, it was fine, but not as incredible as the reviews made it seem.
The Oily Maniac - just google it and watch the trailer. No it's not new. Now go on Amazon prime and watch this thing. Yes it's real.
Irishman - Yes it was long but so what? you are at home so you can pause it. Turn it into a 4-part mini-series if you must. I thought it was fantastic
Once upon a time in hollywood. Once upon a time in san diego old uncle dizzy was bored. Dizzy wondered if he was watching the same movie that all the reviewers were calling a masterpiece and tarantino's magnum opus? Because surely it takes more than period accurate set pieces to be a masterpiece.
Irishman - it didn't exactly re-write his older mobster flicks, but it did come at them from a different angle that was somehow grittier and more unfortunate. And yes, I had to watch it in four parts.
I liked the new Tarantino. So many memorable/entertaining classic scenes for me. And I thought the main characters were really well developed so that they weren't just dumb dude caricatures. He took some dumb dudes and made them better. There, that's my Beatles-inspired capsule review.
Knives Out - was pretty tight, feel like I haven't seen a movie like that in a while where everything is just solid. I saw it with my mom, I'd say it's a good movie to take your mom to see.
Two Popes - I thought was good. Watch if you're into being fed propaganda by the Catholic Church.
That new Star Wars - The last one I had seen was episode 1, which was such a piece of shit that I swore off all the new ones altogether. But a friend had tickets to a screening of this one and invited me. I like how they just plow through the story the same way an 11-year-old plows through a salad just to get to dessert EXCEPT IN THIS CASE THERE IS NO DESSERT. It felt like they just wrote down everything they thought was cool about the previous movies and were like, "let's just make that stuff all over again, but add some other shit just to make it feel new." Watch it if you want to see something made to sell overpriced Lego sets.
Comments
What an absolute crock of shit. Terrible performances by the leads and, Foxx apart, not much better by the supporting case (hungry hands Spacey looked visibly embarrassed). Leaden storytelling, clothes brand soundtrack and clumsy pastich characterisation.
Bunch of shite.
Also watched Personal Shopper.
Greatly enjoyed this, wasn't sure what to expect but actually, ghosts apart, it felt most like a character study - as much inside the head as out of it. Wasn't perfect by any means, particularly some of the heavy handed dialogue, but Stewart was genuinely amazing.
:(
I expect him to start appearing in Woody Allen productions shortly. Maybe a Polanski or two.
I did enjoy his toupee anyway. I'll be sad to see the end of the hairpieces.
I actually didn't watch the last twenty minutes and just looked up the ending on Wikipedia. Can't say I feel like I missed much. Drive did it all better.
Most recent classic we watched (sort of antithetical to the thread, I know) was "The Hustler." Still a great movie. Most recent blockbuster was "Black Panther" (see: Black Panther thread)...
GJ
As soon as the main character goes straight from his 15-cop warehouse bloodbath to meet with his cute love interest in her cute diner, I was like... nah. Then he comes to the diner pursued by loads of cops for a bloody robbery and she's like "I'm with you, even though you never mentioned you bloodbath cops and rob banks for a living and I'm just a waitress" and hops in... come on man write a character.
And on a personal note as an editor I get really annoyed at the way people discuss Baby Driver. People talking like it deserved an Oscar for that. It is not a "well-edited" movie. It was well-previsualized and well-blocked to execute the "action on beats" synchronization, but what that means is the edit was already done by the director before anything was shot and no meaningful choices could be made with the footage in the edit. Let alone the fact that good editing should be hard to pinpoint. If it distracts you enough that you notice it on first viewing (or indeed if most untrained eyes notice there was something going on with the editing at all) then it's not really doing what it's supposed to. Moments of counterpoint, sure, but having the whole thing feel like a music video isn't effective, storytelling editing. I can grant that it's an experiment but it's a little like "I am watching an experiment in editing" and not so much like "wow that movie swept me away in its story, action, and characters and I don't even know what was done technically to achieve it!"
Yeah, nice little head-scratcher at the end too. It wasn't at all what I expected but I liked it.
Finally saw I, Daniel Blake, which measured up.
Mother! is almost unwatchable but hard to stop watching, at the same time. I might actually watch it a 2nd time now that I've read up on it a bit more.
Mountains May Depart was really interesting. Many reviewers have a problem with the third act, but I wasn't bothered by it.
Girls Trip is sooooo funny. Can't believe they put in the bit about the grapefruit bj.
Also to stretch the boundaries of this thread, Finding Frances - the feature-length last episode of Nathan For You - is hilarious and basically a documentary.
Has anybody watched The Killing Of A Sacred Deer? It’s by the same dude who made Teh Lobster, which was an absolute mind-fuck, so I’ve avoided this new one.
Oh, also Lowlifes. Whoa. Over the top but ultimately way more human than Pulp Fiction (which it's getting comparisons to). Careful who you watch it with - most people will not be able to handle it.
speaking of which, i'm going to watch War On Everyone this weekend. any reviews?
Yeah I watched it at the cinema.
It's a more straightforward film than The Lobster but it definitely fucks with your mind anyway. I think it's more consistent as an overall film but less funny.
After watching it I felt ok but it's kind of become more and more depressing in retrospect. Having said that, I really enjoyed it and it's also aesthetically great - lots of Kubrick-style beautifully framed scenes in sterilised environments.
October movies I saw in the theater:
Beanpole - based around a great book (Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War), but departs heavily from the non-fiction accounts in the book, which I think wasn't a bad idea to do. An extremely intense portrayal of severely broken people - female soldiers in the Soviet Army (i.e. actual artillerywomen etc.) returning to normal life. Really good and harsh.
Days of the Bagnold Summer - forgettable UK comedy about a sullen metalhead son hanging with his librarian mother for a summer. big laughs from the (british) crowd, bigger than I thought it deserved. maybe they just like their own. felt lightweight.
Monos - a mix of Lord of the Flies and Come and See - a war movie from the eyes of children, who are also its perpetrators. Set in incredible locations: above the clouds in the Andes in a ruined concrete fort, and then deep in the jungle. An adult prisoner is held by a slowly disintegrating unit of child soldiers. Mica Levi soundtrack was really special. Whole thing was harrowing but didn't descend into schlock torture/gratuitous violence.
i agree with scorsese on this to some extent, but there are exceptions of course. that last spiderman with all the animation and the bizarro plot was pretty tite, and there are a few others i rate. but yeah, it's usually pretty safe.
saw parasite for the second time yesterday. it really is fascinating. i feel like i got a bit more insight from the experience, but that i could easily watch it another time to really soak it all in. anyone else seen it?
Scorsese, I'm too lazy to set up reading the damn NYT website but I remember his initial quote, roughly, and pretty much agree. Safe is the word. I actually did see that spiderman you're talking about and enjoyed it, but it did feel a lot like candy I didn't have to follow too hard. Just look at the flashing pictures. I generally can't find time for the others because the flashing pictures weren't as out there. I think I've said before I pretty much made a rule after Daredevil 2004 that I wasn't gonna spend time on superheros, despite having read comics when I was younger. Everytime somebody convinced me to give one a try because "this one is different" - every year there's one that is different - it wasn't different enough. I saw the Heath Ledger joker one, Guardians of the Galaxy and one or two others so I think I'm not completely out of touch.
Like, by way of example, I've found some enjoyment in pretty much everything Taika Waititi makes, and feel a bit of adopted national pride in what he's accomplished (and having met the dude, NZ tv/film being such a tiny world). And I had loads of friends recommend his Thor movie too. So I started streaming it and had to give up after 20 minutes. It must've had some touches of his humor and so on, but again, not different enough.
The standard quality of those things is so bland it's like eating plain oatmeal or grits or something. This one's different, it's got a single raisin. Why spend my time on that when I can watch 8 movies in the theatre in a single month last month and have the variety of experiences I had, and not a boring one among them? I wanna clarify I watch action movies and sci-fi and other genres too, just that every Marvel movie/superhero movie feels like a bad hybrid of a long running TV series and a standalone film. Like Scorsese says, missing "mystery, revelation or genuine emotional danger".
I thought that too. But the praise for this one is really OTT - "best Scorsese in 30 years" etc! So maybe he's found a new angle...
the lighthouse is truly
https://vimeo.com/126287950?fbclid=IwAR0Os5eEtrn_9ua032iOidUhW9LhooCd_6HMmAcxjnPZyipsPLC2_No2pec
The dusk forest scenes capture that light amazingly. Mhadd Christmas vibezzz, kiddos!
Watched and enjoyed. I had a particular laugh at the scene with the school teacher pleading with the kids: “if I teach you something, will you go home?”
An age old pact.
*spoilers.... i guess*
The movie title doesn't make sense until the end and random lady says "what's your last name" and other Rey says "uhhhhh..... hmmmm.... Skywalker?" and ROLL CREDIT. So essentially the movie has nothing to do with the title, and the title is fucking meaningless anyways. Rey rose 3 movies ago, not in this movie. It's like the came up with a title that sounded cool and then had to justify it so they threw in some bullshit scene at the end.
*end spoilers (that didn't really spoil anything)*
Irishman - Yes it was long but so what? you are at home so you can pause it. Turn it into a 4-part mini-series if you must. I thought it was fantastic
Once upon a time in hollywood. Once upon a time in san diego old uncle dizzy was bored. Dizzy wondered if he was watching the same movie that all the reviewers were calling a masterpiece and tarantino's magnum opus? Because surely it takes more than period accurate set pieces to be a masterpiece.
J Lo stripper Movie - whatever that was called. Again, it was fine, but not as incredible as the reviews made it seem.
The Oily Maniac - just google it and watch the trailer. No it's not new. Now go on Amazon prime and watch this thing. Yes it's real.
Irishman - it didn't exactly re-write his older mobster flicks, but it did come at them from a different angle that was somehow grittier and more unfortunate. And yes, I had to watch it in four parts.
I liked the new Tarantino. So many memorable/entertaining classic scenes for me. And I thought the main characters were really well developed so that they weren't just dumb dude caricatures. He took some dumb dudes and made them better. There, that's my Beatles-inspired capsule review.
You mean religious LOL. I really like both the main actors, but Spot Light is my kind of Catholic film. See also a 2015 Chilean film called The Club.
Co-sign Knives Out: nothing groundbreaking, but good acting and it moves along nicely.