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Mandy - This movie was pretty awful. The acting was okay, the camerawork was okay, but the story was just stupid. They could have gone in some cool directions like making it go real deep into supernatural craziness but they didn't.
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Dec 27, 2018 22:26
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Tim Whatley posted:Vice sucked. They let Dick Cheney, a massive war criminal, off the hook way too lightly, and the film so far up its own rear end. I highly doubt it was that easy for his daughter to come out to her extremely powerful Republican parents and it's just shown as an afterthought. Literally a scene where Alfred Molina plays a waiter and he's naming off things like illegal torture and wiretapping as menu items, and ends with Cheney going "We'll have one of everything." Almost walked out after that. All the cameos in Adam McKay movies are terrible. You also just can’t fit all of Cheney’s evil in 2 hours.
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Dec 28, 2018 07:26
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mcmagic posted:All the cameos in Adam McKay movies are terrible. You also just can’t fit all of Cheney’s evil in 2 hours. Vice is at my theater and it's doing really well, but it looks awful. Makes me sad that people don't go across the hall and see Beale Street instead.
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Dec 28, 2018 07:58
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Since Xmas day I’ve been trying to catch up on the stuff I meant to see so far this year, so hopefully I can then get all the award hopefuls done before that all kicks off. A Star is Born 3.5 Sorry To Bother You 4 Mid90s 3.75* Skate Kitchen 4.5 Mission Impossible Fallout 4 Leave No Trace 4 Annihilation 4 First Reformed 4.5 * I’m usually super content with 1/2 star increments, but just couldn’t quite 4* this one. No real letdowns, so the spread of scores is quite boring. I need to watch Show Dogs again to reset my brain.
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Dec 28, 2018 18:17
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You might dig Madeline's Madeline too, i think i saw it on Kanopy already
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Dec 28, 2018 18:48
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Ah yes! I forgot about that one, trailer made it look interesting. Looks like Prime might have it too, so that’s useful.
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Dec 28, 2018 20:15
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Everyone should watch Burning. And don't read anything about it beforehand.
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Dec 28, 2018 23:58
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The Grinch - D- I was stuck in downtown Chicago for a few hours last month, waiting for a Second City improv show to start but after the art museum had closed. I planned to fill that time by seeing a movie at a giant theater nearby, and assumed that there would be something good showing at some point during that timeframe. I was wrong, it was literally just this playing and decided to see it instead of bum around the attached mall for that time. It, uh, wasn't very good. Decent enough to bring your kids to for a couple of hours, I suppose, but it honestly adds absolutely nothing to the original. It was narrated by Pharrell, which I guess was fun. Bohemian Rhapsody - C I thought the plotting, pacing, and many of the performances were downright bad for the most part; this film felt like a mess to me. However, I went to see it for the concert segments and those were done pretty neatly in my opinion, so it wasn't all bad. Creed II - B I loving loooooooooooove the Rocky franchise and thought Creed was one of the best entries yet and a great direction (probably the only direction) it could go to keep the story going. That said, this entry felt like it was treading water. I guess it's time for Stallone's exit from the franchise, as it seems like Michael B. Jordan is trapped in a "you're my family!"/"you're not my family!"/"you're my family!" story loop while Rocky's still present. First Man - B- Whiplash was my favorite movie of the last decade and La La Land was a top-three movie for me the year it came out, so I was eager to see Damien Chazelle's latest film, but this one was a bit of a bore honestly. It's incredible on a technical level and solid on a performance level, and I felt it gave a clear-eyed glimpse into the "holy poo poo everyone around me is dying and this is a total loving deathtrap" atmosphere of the early space program that I greatly appreciated, but there was just something missing here. It didn't have the spark of the other two films. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - A- This is probably tied with Eighth Grade as my favorite movie of the year. I suppose it's similar to First Man in that the technical mastery displayed was jawdropping, but it was so much more enjoyable, emotional, and energetic. It really had everything going for it. I thought Miles' story was a little trite but that's all that kept this one from an A. The Favourite - B+ Classic premise (that I think is historically mostly accurate?) with a wonderful performance by Rachel Weisz, good performances by Emma Stone and Nicholas Hoult, and a very skilled but somewhat bizarre performance by Olivia Colman. I've only seen this and The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos, but I think my understanding of him as "sex maniac Wes Anderson" is entirely correct and without flaw.
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Dec 29, 2018 20:50
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I agree Spider-Verse was easily a top three of the year film (along with the best Marvel and best Spider-Man movies period). One of the best looking animated films of all time to boot. Just incredibly well done and I don't really have any criticism of it.
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Dec 29, 2018 20:55
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Whoops, two more that I watched recently but not in theaters: RoboCop (1987) - C+ This was my first time watching the film, and I was admittedly disappointed. I had always heard that this film had brilliant satire, and I think that was probably true and extraordinarily fresh for a film of this nature at the time of its release. Similarly, I think that the film's technical work would have also been extremely well-received at that time, which is evidenced by its award nominations. Both the satire and the technical work do hold up on a basic level but definitely don't impress. There were some great moments (Kinney's death at the start, some of the Boddicker scenes, that incredible toxic waste effect on Emil), but for me, those were only brief respites from an otherwise dull experience. I thought that Nancy Allen in particular was abysmal. I did love seeing Miguel Ferrer and Ray Wise, though. It's hard for me to look at this movie and not compare it to The Terminator; my copy even came in a combo pack with it. Perhaps it's nostalgia talking (I first saw it as a teenager, although I did rewatch it last year), but Terminator holds up so much better now in my opinion than this. Les Amitiés maléfiques (Poison Friends) - A- I saw this for the first time at my college's film society a few years after it was released. It stuck in my head just enough to make me want to buy and revisit it about a decade later, so that's a credit to it. My first viewing was honestly the perfect time to see it; I was a first-semester freshman and André Morney's bravado was as intoxicating to me as it was to the other characters. The revelation that he was a fraud with exactly one trick to play (belittling the aspirations of the people around him and quoting Karl Kraus: "Why do some write? Because they're too weak not to") was an eye-opener. I was attending a little liberal arts college, and although it didn't have a lot of people running around with Morney's views, it was packed with people who had his attitude. The film taught me a very valuable and timely lesson. Technically, it's a decent-looking film despite being shot on what I suspect was an early-aughts digital camera. I'm honestly surprised no Hollywood studio gave it an American remake; Thibault Vinçon was a French Jesse Eisenberg and it's kind of eerie. There's really something timeless about this story and the characterization of Morney; it's a wonderful portrayal of a very specific kind of toxic relationship and I can't think of another film that depicts it. I think my grade for the movie reflects my own experience with it rather than an objective measure of its quality, but I think there's a lot to recommend it.
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Dec 30, 2018 00:45
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I always wonder how people will react to films that I think I hold in high esteem partially due to nostalgia. I'm presuming you've seen the full uncut version of RoboCop where the hand explodes etc? Not that it'll make a real difference to your opinion, but the extra scenes really add to the absurdity and OTT nature of the film.
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Dec 30, 2018 02:11
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Yeah, Robocop is a movie that really kind of lives or dies based on the cut you watch. The R-rated is a fun action movie, but the uncut is the real poo poo.
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Dec 30, 2018 02:23
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Yep, I saw the full version. It was a fun element but didn't shift my opinion much overall.
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Dec 30, 2018 02:32
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Does the full version change anything aside from Murphy's death scene?
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Dec 30, 2018 02:36
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A bit more seconds of gore in some other partsEL BROMANCE posted:I always wonder how people will react to films that I think I hold in high esteem partially due to nostalgia. I'm presuming you've seen the full uncut version of RoboCop where the hand explodes etc? Not that it'll make a real difference to your opinion, but the extra scenes really add to the absurdity and OTT nature of the film. I tried showing my teenage niece Lebowski and she wasnt into it so i gave up Die Hard also might not stand out from the action crowd as much nowadays, there have been so many copycats (none as good though)
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Dec 30, 2018 02:43
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got any sevens posted:A bit more seconds of gore in some other parts In general I think airtight movies like Die Hard hold up way better with new viewers than a shaggy but inventive movie like Robocop
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Dec 30, 2018 02:47
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I can confirm, I saw RoboCop for the first time on TV 4 years ago; and I thought it was "meh". Saw it again this last year in the full cut, and it's still "meh" to fresh eyes. While I saw Die Hard for the first time last year, and loved it. I've only seen RoboCop and Starship Troopers, so take this with a grain of salt, but I do think these two really illustrate why some people have a hard time enjoying Verhoeven's movies. Between the two, the only legitimately charming character is Boddicker. ST has the excuse that all of the main characters are meant to evoke the flat characters of an after-school sitcom. But in RoboCop, all of the main characters that you watch are pretty dull. Ignoring the aforementioned exception, every character is either ill-defined aside from a basic motivation; or plain unlikable, which makes the climax satisfying but the all of their scenes beforehand aggrivating. Modern audiences are spoiled on charming character writing, which makes older films without a great character feel a bit dull. Die Hard excels at Characters where RoboCop falls flat, and giving them all a chance to shine. McClaine's character is a great cocktail of sardonic pluckiness, that makes any scene of him interacting with Gruber and his crew both a treat in overcoming adversity while being legitimately funny. Meanwhile Gruber is a dark reflection of John; for every trait that McClain embodies, Gruber has the inverse. What this does is make Hans just as entertaining while creating a kind of dance that keeps the audience excited to see the next scene. Likewise each and every side character feels well formed, and feel like they've been plucked out of another film or show where they're a significant character. Verhoeven's films feature very specific themes, and he constructs the film so that as many elements as possible contribute towards these themes. But I can't say that they end up creating films that are as enjoyable moment-to-moment as Die Hard. Not to say that RoboCop or Starship Troopers bad movies, or that Verhoeven is a bad filmmaker; it's that when judging on the sole criteria of what a modern audience wants from a movie, Verhoeven falls quite short. Edit: Another thought I had when making this post, is that a core aspect of RoboCop's image of Detroit is centered around the anxieties that the audience of the 80's had about the inner city and urban crime. Adults of the 80's saw the rise of crime in cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles; adults of the 2010's have seen the gentrification of the inner city and a decrease in urban crime. These wholly disparate images of what constitutes "the City" in the minds of these viewers ends up creating an inability for the younger viewer to appreciate RoboCop as the older generation did. Meanwhile Millenial anxieties regarding the future, antagonistic government institutions, and capitalist greed should be related in RoboCop; the events of the film don't reflect what Millennials see around them. RoboCop's future is seems to reflect what the 80's believed in; the suburbs are attainable safehavens that morally good white Americans are owed, Cops want to do good and protect the populace, and Corporations are morally neutral but can be corrupted by bad eggs. Millennials believe that the suburbs are growing more unattainable and undesirable compared to urban living, Cops are adversarial to the public and protect institutions over people, and that Corporations are inherently parasitic in nature where "bad eggs" are rewarded. Millenials can't enjoy RoboCop because RoboCop assumes a certain outlook on America that millennials can't possibly relate to. Die Hard was never meant to reflect America or it's basic ideals, it's a just another echo of the Heroes Tale. Adeline Weishaupt fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Dec 30, 2018 |
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Dec 30, 2018 04:02
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umalt posted:Millennials believe [...] Cops are adversarial to the public and protect institutions over people, and that Corporations are inherently parasitic in nature where "bad eggs" are rewarded. literally the subsequent paragraph posted:Millenials can't enjoy RoboCop because RoboCop assumes a certain outlook on America that millennials can't possibly relate to. As a millennial who loves RoboCop, what version of RoboCop did you watch
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Dec 30, 2018 05:49
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Robocop is some of the tightest 100 minutes of satire I've ever seen.
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Dec 30, 2018 09:50
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got any sevens posted:A bit more seconds of gore in some other parts Truly this will make all of the film's detractors re-evaluate their stance. I Before E posted:As a millennial who loves RoboCop, what version of RoboCop did you watch A surprising number of people treat the ending of RoboCop like a happy ending.
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Dec 31, 2018 02:50
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Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982, Ian McNaughton/Terry Hughes) [Netflix] - 4/5 Smiles of a Summer Night (1955, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 Crisis (1946, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 3.5/5 A Ship to India (1947, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 3.5/5 To Joy (1950, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 Dreams (1955, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 A Lesson in Love (1954, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 Summer with Monika (1953, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 3/5 Summer Interlude (1951, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 3.5/5 True Stories (1986, David Byrne) [Blu-ray] - 4.5/5 Good Times, Wonderful Times (1966, Lionel Rogosin) [Blu-ray] - 5/5 Andrei Rublev (1966, Andrei Tarkovsky) [Blu-ray] - 4.5/5
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Dec 31, 2018 04:20
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New Year, New You - C+ This literally just came out this weekend on Hulu, I think? I'll use spoilers where needed given that. This one came out of nowhere for me; I had vague intentions of watching a whole bunch of TV show episodes this weekend to catch up there, realized Sunday afternoon that I wasn't going to get through any meaningful chunk of that backlog, and decided to procrastinate on the whole thing by doing Something Else. I hadn't heard of this coming out, or the anthology series it's a part of, before seeing it while aimlessly scrolling through Hulu avoiding those drat TV shows. Horror movies are my least-watched genre, but this one intrigued me because it had an all-female cast and director. By the way, I wrote the preceding text at the midpoint of the film because Suki Waterhouse so successfully unnerved/cringed me out in the first half that I had to pause the thing for a bit. OK, some notes now that I'm done: - I thought it was Chloe Dykstra in the lead role literally until the credits. I don't think I've seen Waterhouse in anything but those two are maybe clones of each other. All four leads were new to me, actually. - I liked the contrast between how Melissa Bergland played Chloe as an "Instagram influencee" character, which I think is really distinct from the "Instagram stalker" performance of Aubrey Plaza in Ingrid Goes West. I don't think I know any Ingrids, but I know a LOT of Chloes and it's super depressing. - The Danielle story about Elon Musk was a real highlight. There's no way in hell that dude isn't the world's biggest creep. - The scene of Danielle doing her "confession" video was loving pitch-perfect fake apology bullshit. I was murmuring to myself "I'm just sorry I didn't do anything to stop it!" to myself and when she concluded by saying almost exactly that, it was incredible. - I did appreciate that both Alexis and Danielle are totally loving nuts. Their scene-chewing was wonderful. I didn't give the movie a very good grade, but I would say this falls into the "fun B-movie" category. - I was worried that the backhalf of the movie was going in what felt like the laziest possible direction. I had been hoping that it would turn out that Danielle, while admittedly a teenage bully and a shill of bad self-care nonsense, would be just that and that Alexis would be the only REAL villain; I was guessing that the whole Kelsie story would be TOTALLY different from what was presented during the interrogation scene. So, that didn't happen, but fortunately they did course-correct at the very end once it was just Alexis and Danielle to make them roughly equally psycho/evil then. Even still, there's a real long stretch of the movie after the interrogation where Alexis is basically just the plucky heroine/final girl whatever and it seemed bizarre to depict her that way. I guess that maybe she was just playing it up for Kayla so that she'd have a pawn to equal Danielle's Chloe, but Kayla wasn't around for most of it. - I guess they ran out of money for the effects budget at the end because Danielle's death fall into the pool was the goofiest looking poo poo. Overall, this ultimately felt like a really well-produced thing by a YouTube channel or whatever moreso than a real film, but I didn't regret watching it.
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Dec 31, 2018 04:48
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I thought Garry Marshall was dead, they're still making poo poo like that?
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Dec 31, 2018 17:16
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Samuel Clemens posted:Truly this will make all of the film's detractors re-evaluate their stance. at least two of the film's best scenes sort of rely on that gore to work without it, Murphy's death and the ED-209 boardroom scene are just kind of disturbing; with it, they're turned up to 11 enough that they read as blackly comedic
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Jan 1, 2019 23:39
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The Favourite - 4.5/5. Dark and hilarious with great acting across the board. I really liked the cinematography as well, it did a lot with the scenery to add to the character of the film instead of just serving the plot. Probably top three of the year for me.
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Jan 2, 2019 06:56
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:at least two of the film's best scenes sort of rely on that gore to work Murphy's death isn't comedic in either cut. It's more horrifying in the unrated cut, but it's not funny or played for comedy.
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Jan 2, 2019 15:55
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Riders of the Storm (AKA: The American Way) 3.9/5 I initially had a lot more to say about this movie, but I'll keep it short with the end of original write-up: It plays out like a fever dream of a time traveler from 1986 glimpsing into the media of 2016 for just a few moments and then being told to make a movie on what they think they saw. I think that might be part of the reason I'm rating it so high, along with Dennis Hopper being Dennis Hopper.
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Jan 3, 2019 09:06
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SimonCat posted:Murphy's death isn't comedic in either cut. It's more horrifying in the unrated cut, but it's not funny or played for comedy. ehhhh I'd say the OTT gore along with Boddicker's mannerisms turns it into a black comedy scene, and only one of those elements is there in the theatrical. like, the gore is so insane that it's kind of just cartoonish and not disturbing.
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Jan 4, 2019 03:21
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Watched a couple of movies recently that really pissed me off with their endings. First was Man Vs., which I didn't have high hopes for but was surprisingly well-acted and enjoyable right up until the monster reveal. Seriously some of the worst cgi and creature design I've seen in years, just so bad it ruined everything, why the hell didn't they just put a guy in a suit or something? Aaggh. So I guess 5/10, when it was a solid low-budget 7 until the last bit. I just finished watching The Beyond a few minutes ago. I thought the documentary style really worked well for the story (it's not always my favorite thing) plus it had good pacing, decent acting and really drew me in and I was dying to know where it was all going, then the ending was just so nausiatingly saccharine, like seriously this is not why I watch sci-fi you dorks. Huge case of blue balls, I'm still pissed off. I can't even rate this one, it's like two movies. Oh! And yesterday was some Nicolas Cage post-apocalytpic thing called Humanity Bureau which I gave the 'ol thumbs-down to, because it was such a bizarre mix of super-serious sad film and totally wacky villian. Like it's trying to make this serious commentary on society over a backdrop of genocide, but threw in a low-rent Herr Starr for comedy relief. What, I don't...goddamn it Netflix.
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Jan 4, 2019 04:23
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BlacKkKlansman was great up until the scooby doo climax. Two hours of a suspenseful caper, interesting debate about how to fight racism and an examination of how pop culture shapes society, and 15 minutes of phony situations so we could get a Hollywood climax.
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Jan 4, 2019 11:30
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Roma is very very well photographed and well directed but jeez it was boring.
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Jan 5, 2019 07:46
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Starting the year off with some Ringo Lam catch-up. Prison on Fire and Full Contact are both loving awesome. Maximum Risk is pretty good, not great.
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Jan 5, 2019 07:51
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Steve Yun posted:Roma is very very well photographed and well directed but jeez it was boring. Did you see it in the theater?
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Jan 5, 2019 07:51
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A few more stragglers before the last big push of the year If Beale Street Could Talk - 92/100 Vox Lux - 88/100 Free Solo - 67/100 The Favorite - 81/100 Wings of Desire - 84/100 At Eternity’s Gate - 75/100 Aquaman - 69/100
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Jan 5, 2019 07:54
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Why so down on free solo? Everyone else was raving about it.
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Jan 5, 2019 08:14
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got any sevens posted:Why so down on free solo? Everyone else was raving about it. It's an incredibly generic documentary with lame framing devices, (fairly sexist) girlfriend drama, and the actual climb edited poorly into a 6-8 minute montage that completely killed all suspense or anticipation.
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Jan 5, 2019 10:22
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Alex is also just really bad center for a long form documentary. He's shy and awkward and the doc frames it all the wrong way for a subject like that. I'd recommend some of the short Youtube docs about his climbing over the full length.
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Jan 5, 2019 19:37
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artsy fartsy posted:Watched a couple of movies recently that really pissed me off with their endings. I feel like it would have been much better with no reveal at all.
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Jan 5, 2019 22:11
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Just watched Resident Evil: The Final Chapter it was the only one of the series I hadn't seen. I knew it was going to be bad but not quite as bad as it actually was. Is the Resident Evil series the worst film series ever? EDIT: Rating 1/5. bessantj fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Jan 5, 2019 |
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Jan 5, 2019 22:59
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| # ? May 14, 2024 13:08 |
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Fuckin please. You wish.
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Jan 5, 2019 23:10
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