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There's one in Sean's MR on my Before Midnight review, too.
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Jul 2, 2013 03:45
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Vargo posted:There's one in Sean's incredibly insightful and painfully true MR on my Before Midnight review, too.
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Jul 2, 2013 04:16
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I fixed it. Now I'm furiously  ing to watch it disappear...e: And it's gone! Whew.
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Jul 2, 2013 04:19
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Jay Dub posted:I am genuinely ashamed of myself for not catching them. As punishment, nothing but talking animal movies until Oscar season is over. Which I figure you were getting, anyways.
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Jul 2, 2013 06:30
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Smurfs 2 comes out next week! I can't wait for Jay Dub to be reintroduced to the world of awful talking CGI creatures 
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Jul 2, 2013 08:50
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Y-Hat posted:Smurfs 2 comes out next week! I can't wait for Jay Dub to be reintroduced to the world of awful talking CGI creatures God, I hope my theater doesn't get it. We've got enough kid's movies to deal with already.
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Jul 2, 2013 10:07
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And the week after that, Turbo! Because summer 2013 needed more than one movie with a CGI snail, I guess.
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Jul 2, 2013 13:07
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Y-Hat posted:Smurfs 2 comes out next week! I can't wait for Jay Dub to be reintroduced to the world of awful talking CGI creatures Next week?! My calendar says the 31st. It's bad enough that Turbo, Smurfs and Planes all open within a month of each other.
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Jul 2, 2013 14:09
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Based on your review, I simultaneously really want to watch the Before... movies but also don't think it's a good idea to watch the last one because I'm going back to the States soon and my girlfriend is staying in Italy, so based on your review the third one would probably hit me really hard right now.
Mahlertov Cocktail fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jul 3, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 22:07
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Jay Dub posted:Next week?! My calendar says the 31st. Summer 2013: JayDub Suicide Watch
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Jul 2, 2013 23:51
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Despicable Me 2 wasn't great (or even good, really), but I don't think it was the anti-single parent/gay family diatribe you colored it as. Still, I spent the whole film feeling like something was missing, and it turned out to be Edith, who had not one point of the plot focused on her, except for "ew, gross, boys".
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Jul 7, 2013 10:20
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Props for the Bling Ring review Vargo. I was going to skip the film, but your review sparked my interest in it. Some critics I follow here in Norway has praised the film to such an hyperbolic degree that I stopped caring about it. But your more even-handed review made me notice. Especially when you mentioned some of the stylistic choices beyond Coppola's choice of music (this was literally all they did in their review) and how you gave som background on the basis of the film. I swear these guys act more like blind fanboys than film critics sometimes. Good to have Current Releases as a mediator then.
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Jul 7, 2013 11:29
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spouse posted:Despicable Me 2 wasn't great (or even good, really), but I don't think it was the anti-single parent/gay family diatribe you colored it as. Still, I spent the whole film feeling like something was missing, and it turned out to be Edith, who had not one point of the plot focused on her, except for "ew, gross, boys". It's not so much a duatribe as just a huge, disappointing step backwards from the ideas in the original. If his was an original film, it wouldn't be so bad. As a sequel to Despicable Me, it's a major disservice.
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Jul 7, 2013 12:08
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I had The Onion AV Club on my mind for this week's reviews. Their review of The Lone Ranger talked a lot about subverting tropes in Western movies, and I thought that the Current Releases review would talk about that. Oh well, at least you agreed with one of the commenters on the Despicable Me 2 review that it's heteronormative garbage. Meanwhile, The Bling Ring sounds like a better, more fleshed-out version of that movie where that terminally ill person teams up with a teenager to kill idiots. get that OUT of my face fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 19:21
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How many movies about terrible people can we have this year? Bling Ring, Pain n Gain, Spring Breakers... Not that I mind, just an interesting trend.
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Jul 7, 2013 19:51
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Apes-Ma posted:Props for the Bling Ring review Vargo. I was going to skip the film, but your review sparked my interest in it. Some critics I follow here in Norway has praised the film to such an hyperbolic degree that I stopped caring about it. But your more even-handed review made me notice. Especially when you mentioned some of the stylistic choices beyond Coppola's choice of music (this was literally all they did in their review) and how you gave som background on the basis of the film. I don't understand this at all. Yeah, Coppola's like Scorsese or Baz Luhmann in her use of licensed music to support the film's themes, but I seriously don't see how you can spend more than three sentences on it unless you are specifically discussing the soundtrack itself. For the film as a whole, there's WAY too much going on to focus solely on that. effectual posted:How many movies about terrible people can we have this year? Bling Ring, Pain n Gain, Spring Breakers... I have taken extensive notes on this trend, and I will likely use it for our end-of-the-year wrapup, so I don't want to give it away before my ideas are fully formed. But it's important to realize that all of these movies, as well as This Is The End, The Great Gatsby, and Iron Man 3, are about people who think they're invincible because of their money and their stuff, and how they learn how incorrect that is. I think that, to a certain extent, American audiences want to see that money =/= power eight now, because of the amount of time we've spent seeing the exact opposite in real life. There's a very OWS-type feel about this trend. (Note also that with the exception of Tony Stark and the TITE crew, all of these people gained their money/stuff/power through illicit or at least questionable means, and basically argued that they deserved to have it.)
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Jul 7, 2013 20:34
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Y-Hat posted:I had The Onion AV Club on my mind for this week's reviews. Their review of The Lone Ranger talked a lot about subverting tropes in Western movies, and I thought that the Current Releases review would talk about that. Sure, there are plenty of callbacks and references to other Westerns and cliches of the genre, but I honestly didn't find much that was particularly subversive. The Tonto backstory is a pretty decent bit of revisionism, but by the time we get there, it's just drowned out by so much other nonsense that it's hard to even care. Different strokes, I guess.
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Jul 8, 2013 01:03
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Vargo posted:I don't understand this at all. Yeah, Coppola's like Scorsese or Baz Luhmann in her use of licensed music to support the film's themes, but I seriously don't see how you can spend more than three sentences on it unless you are specifically discussing the soundtrack itself. For the film as a whole, there's WAY too much going on to focus solely on that. Yeah I definetely figured it's a reaction to the OWS mood, just took a couple years for the scripts to get realized as movies I guess. Gatsby is a good example, because there's GG, who works hard (I assume), but does it via breaking prohibition laws, something most people then and now didn't like, while his antagonist got his money the old fashioned way: inheriting.
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Jul 8, 2013 01:54
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Johnny Depp seemed to draw a little inspiration from Gary Farmer, his co-star in "Dead Man." I always liked that character and I think Depp channels some of it into Tonto.
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Jul 8, 2013 02:00
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Vargo posted:(Note also that with the exception of Tony Stark and the TITE crew, all of these people gained their money/stuff/power through illicit or at least questionable means, and basically argued that they deserved to have it.) Even Tony Stark is arguably a war profiteer.
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Jul 8, 2013 18:13
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Schwarzwald posted:Even Tony Stark is arguably a war profiteer. Good point. Plus he inherited most of his wealth from his father, but it would be hard to argue that Tony Stark didn't work to earn the tools/power he had. Stark and Gatsby might be in their own subcategory of people who were given a lot of stuff, but had to keep working (sometimes shadily) in order to keep it. This is also interesting because they're also arguably the LEAST bad people in this list of movie characters. EDIT: I guess I mean they (plus Franco, Rogan, et al) the only ones who didn't outright steal it.
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Jul 8, 2013 18:38
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Vargo posted:Stark and Gatsby might be in their own subcategory of people who were given a lot of stuff, but had to keep working (sometimes shadily) in order to keep it. This is also interesting because they're also arguably the LEAST bad people in this list of movie characters. And that leads to it's own set of conclusions. There is almost a message like it being necessary to accept evil to achieve success.
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Jul 9, 2013 04:49
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Gotta thank you, Jay Dub. Before reading your review, I had absolutely no interest in The Lone Ranger, but after reading it made me go see the film because it sounded like my kind of trainwreck and my god it was. Probably the most fun I've had watching a movie this year despite the annoyances of the story's framing device of the little poo poo complaining about plotholes and the fact that the movie treats its audience like they're idiots by flashing back to what happened five minutes ago in the movie and not letting them put two-and-two together (which I really loving hated in the A-Team movie). Sidenote, but I can't be the only one that feels like the movie's plot was basically Who Framed Roger Rabbit except with Comanches instead of Toons am I?
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Jul 9, 2013 07:05
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Do not even ask posted:
It also bares a striking resemblance to the plot of Rango, which amuses me to no end.
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Jul 9, 2013 07:19
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Do not even ask posted:Sidenote, but I can't be the only one that feels like the movie's plot was basically Who Framed Roger Rabbit except with Comanches instead of Toons am I? It's too bad the movie didn't end with Tom Wilkinson saying "Remember me, John? When I had your brother killed, I talked just! like! THIIIIIS!". Talk about movie of the year material. 
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Jul 9, 2013 14:23
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Vargo posted:I have taken extensive notes on this trend, and I will likely use it for our end-of-the-year wrapup, so I don't want to give it away before my ideas are fully formed. But it's important to realize that all of these movies, as well as This Is The End, The Great Gatsby, and Iron Man 3, are about people who think they're invincible because of their money and their stuff, and how they learn how incorrect that is. I think that, to a certain extent, American audiences want to see that money =/= power eight now, because of the amount of time we've spent seeing the exact opposite in real life. There's a very OWS-type feel about this trend. (Note also that with the exception of Tony Stark and the TITE crew, all of these people gained their money/stuff/power through illicit or at least questionable means, and basically argued that they deserved to have it.) Gangster Squad could be on the list, except that's just how villainous gangsters are in general.
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Jul 10, 2013 03:58
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Vargo posted:I have taken extensive notes on this trend, and I will likely use it for our end-of-the-year wrapup, so I don't want to give it away before my ideas are fully formed. But it's important to realize that all of these movies, as well as This Is The End, The Great Gatsby, and Iron Man 3, are about people who think they're invincible because of their money and their stuff, and how they learn how incorrect that is. I think that, to a certain extent, American audiences want to see that money =/= power eight now, because of the amount of time we've spent seeing the exact opposite in real life. There's a very OWS-type feel about this trend. (Note also that with the exception of Tony Stark and the TITE crew, all of these people gained their money/stuff/power through illicit or at least questionable means, and basically argued that they deserved to have it.) Other movies about bad people this year include The Hangover 3 (though the entire series is about bad people), Stoker, Behind the Candelabra (to an extent), Crystal Fairy (which I think is coming out really soon) and a major one that fits the theme (that I'm not sure is actually going to come out this year) Magic Magic.
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Jul 10, 2013 04:04
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the best recent movie trend is Teen Trolling, lure teens to great movies they don't have a chance at understanding yet, e.g. Cosmopolis, Spring Breakers
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Jul 10, 2013 05:37
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Just saw Bling Ring and I quite liked it. The best Sofia Coppola since Lost in Translation (which is one of my favorite movies) for sure. While I agree on Vargo's point on Emma Watson, and clearly Coppola thought the same since the last shot is of her, I did not think that Watson quite pulled off the valley girl accent and occasionally I felt I was hearing her English accent come out. It wasn't a problem but it was a bit distracting. It's a great film to watch alongside Springbreakers due to similar themes and presentations. Also the shot mentioned by Vargo is AMAZING. I could watch that scene over and over on a gif if possible. The accompanying sound effects (police sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and howling coyotes) were perfect.
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Jul 10, 2013 23:02
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A few years ago I became really disenchanted with American movies and the critical establishment. I couldn't quite figure out why. I just sort of lost interest in it all, even though I really enjoyed film and discussing film tropes. I ended up taking a job in South Korea and not even really thinking about losing that, because that was how indifferent I'd become. The story of how I got involved with Korean film isn't really relevant to the thread, so I'll just get into how you guys influenced me. I found out about Current Releases some time after moving here, and combined with my exposure to a very different approach and attitude toward filmmaking, it really seriously changed the way I look at movies. I used to think the tomatometer is important- now I realize it's garbage. It's all either empty praise or pedantic complaints. No one really gets into how or whether a movie works holistically. It's either a sum of its parts, a relation to extant material, or looked at under the assumption that it should be some specific thing. I love that Current Releases actually takes the broader view seriously. I disagree with you guys a lot- but I respect your opinion and I think you make good arguments, and that's all you really owe me as a film critic. Whether you're trashing a movie widely seen as good or praising a movie widely seen as bad, there's an honest consistency in your pieces that makes it clear you respect my ability to think and assume I can synergize your opinions with my own. Like, I guessed from your review of The Lincoln Lawyer that I would not like The Lincoln Lawyer. When I recalled this memory several months later after watching it with someone else, I was surprised to find that it had actually gotten a really positive review. It had just been described in such a way that I correctly guessed I would not like it. It's been very influential to me. Next week I'm stopping the English teacher racket and going into media criticism full-time, and I'm keeping your reviews in mind as I do so. I saw a movie last month that was really critically panned, but I gave it high praise. I thought about whether my opinion was justified, and thought about the Current Releases rubric. I ended up with Satanic Allegory, Bad Sex, Creepy Puppets, Ironic Humor, and Unsatisfying Ending. And you know what? I'll defend that opinion to anyone now. Which is pretty much no one, since this movie won't have English subtitles for several months, if ever. I found someone who had actually seen it and hated it last week and was so psyched because I was able to explain to him why it didn't suck! One other thing. The Ruby Sparks review ruined the movie's big climactic moment for me. Thanks, jerk! Although I probably wouldn't have seen Ruby Sparks at all without the review, so I guess it evens out. Fun fact- Zoe Kazan, the writer of Ruby Sparks, actually really hates the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl and resents the way it's been used to describe the movie. I don't blame you for making that assumption, though. I probably would have too, going into the movie blind. Alas, we are but men.
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Jul 12, 2013 13:59
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Well, now I'm blushing. Thanks, Some Guy TT. Comments like yours are half of why we love doing this. The other half, I think, are the movies. OK, maybe that's the other quarter.
Keanu Grieves fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jul 13, 2013 |
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Jul 13, 2013 22:58
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I'm in basically the exact same situation as Some Guy TT, except in Hong Kong. I'll have my first associate producer credit on a theatrical release in 2015 and I'm pretty excited about that. I have to say that Current Releases has greatly influenced the way I read the scripts that come to me, totally for the better. Sometimes I'll see a local or Chinese movie and think about how ProfessorClumsy or Vargo might review it. Can I send you a BluRay? But seriously folks, never stop. And ask Lowtax for a raise.
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Jul 14, 2013 13:18
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Bloodnose posted:Can I send you a BluRay? Please. quote:And ask Lowtax for a raise. Hey, Lowtax...
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Jul 14, 2013 17:23
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As honored as I am by this, where the hell are you guys getting these primo film jobs? SomeGuyTT, your post almost made me cry, though. Seriously. That is a tremendous amount of praise. What is the media criticism project you're working on? We love throwing love and shout-outs to our friend's projects, so tell us more, and we'll help if we can.
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Jul 14, 2013 17:25
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Some of the comments we've been getting lately have been wonderful and humbling. Thanks, everybody. I'll hold them close in the month to come, because dear god, am I going to need it.
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Jul 14, 2013 17:59
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It still amazes me that anyone even reads my words, let alone cares about or finds them important. That's mind-blowing.
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Jul 14, 2013 18:06
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Professor Clumsy posted:It still amazes me that anyone even reads my words, let alone cares about or finds them important. That's mind-blowing. When that rare person has the balls on a nerd site to not suck up to stuff like Avengers or Man of Steel, people take notice. Keep giving honest opinions.
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Jul 14, 2013 18:28
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All aboard the Praise Train, whoo whoo! Seriously, though, I love you guys. I enjoy reading your reviews more than I think I'd enjoy seeing some of these films. And now you've got me wondering if The Hunt is showing in my small town theater.
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Jul 14, 2013 22:30
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effectual posted:When that rare person has the balls on a nerd site to not suck up to stuff like Avengers or Man of Steel, people take notice. Keep giving honest opinions. I've been literally SCREAMED at by fellow developers at work for having incorrect opinions about nerd movies. Kill all nerds. Also I was really kinda hoping you'd pan Pacific Rim so I could send my friend yet another bad Current Releases link for a movie he's really excited for. It usually reduces him to communicating in nothing but frowny-face emoticons for a week or so 
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Jul 14, 2013 23:29
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fuzzy_logic posted:I've been literally SCREAMED at by fellow developers at work for having incorrect opinions about nerd movies. Kill all nerds. That looks like he panned pacific rim. It was the most backhanded compliment laden review I've ever seen. The movie was great, though. I laughed my rear end off the whole thing through. I was the only one though...
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Jul 15, 2013 00:10
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