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Bottom Liner posted: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. Yeah, and let me just clarify that I'm a bit picky about docs anyways. Free Solo is absolutely a mass appeal product in the most basic sense, but compared to the director's previous work (Meru) it really falters in terms of craft and ingenuity. Hell, it's really weak compared to just the last National Geo doc I saw, Jane, which was up there with some of the best I've ever watched. The strengths of Jane were all about non-traditional editing techniques (almost no talking-heads in chairs), coupled with an amazing Phillip Glass original score. Now that's the type of doc that feels like a revelation. All that said, Free Solo made our theater a ton of money this year.
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Jan 5, 2019 23:39
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Fuckin please. You wish. I suppose this isn't the thread for it but even film series that are mostly terrible like the Hellraiser series at least has one or two films that I like. Even Transformers has Bumblebee, Resident Evil is just terrible from start to finish.
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Jan 6, 2019 00:13
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Cam, 2018. A movie I put on to watch in the background while I worked on a business plan and ended up shutting my laptop after a few minutes when I realised I wasn't getting any work done. Weirdly gripping, and certainly something I'd recommend. In the vein of Upgrade, Coherence, Enemy, The Double, Compliance, Black Swan. If you're a fan of any of those I'd check it out. Solid B.
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Jan 6, 2019 00:20
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Hardware One of those movies you'll like if it's Extremely Your poo poo. It's cyberpunk, it's post-apocalyptic, and there's a killer robot that's about as intimidating as Johnny-5. I was down as hell until the robot started to get boring, somewhere around the 150th time they zoom in to its red glowing robot eyes as they dilate, as seen earlier and more sparingly in Terminator. If the primary villain of the film had been the weird sex pervert spying on our heroine instead of a cool looking but incredible static setpiece, this would've been a legitimate cyberpunk classic. Recommended only for fans of cyberpunk/the 80s/sci fi movies in the style of Terry Gilliam
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Jan 6, 2019 06:06
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Watched A Cure For Wellness and Apostle within a few weeks of each other and they ended up being basically identical movies. I’ve loved that basic structure before but both felt like they needed to be 45 minutes shorter and 50% more hysterical
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Jan 9, 2019 00:13
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Vice is easily the worst movie I've seen this year. What a dogshit experience.
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Jan 9, 2019 01:17
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Vice is easily the worst movie I've seen this year. What a dogshit experience. Yeah I heard about the alfred molina scene and cringed and knew I wouldnt ever see it. I'd rather watch American Psycho, for a christian bale murderer movie This lady writes pretty good reviews too http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews46_52/page47.cfm
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Jan 9, 2019 01:33
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What an utterly condescending, revisionist, manipulative, piece of agitprop filth it is. It's barely a film. Wouldn't shed a tear if McKay never directed another movie.
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Jan 9, 2019 01:42
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morestuff posted:Watched A Cure For Wellness and Apostle within a few weeks of each other and they ended up being basically identical movies. I’ve loved that basic structure before but both felt like they needed to be 45 minutes shorter and 50% more hysterical Apostle could stand to be less restrained but Cure For Wellness is already loving bonkers
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Jan 10, 2019 22:35
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DeimosRising posted:Apostle could stand to be less restrained but Cure For Wellness is already loving bonkers The ending gets to a nice Dr. Phibes zone I like but before that it's like two hours of eels
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Jan 10, 2019 22:41
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morestuff posted:The ending gets to a nice Dr. Phibes zone I like but before that it's like two hours of eels Let’s not be coy, they’re butt eels. And blood eels. Also lots of wonderfully weird looking old people, only slightly less gross than the eels
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Jan 11, 2019 01:01
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Just watched Upstream Color for class and wow  The first third was pretty unpleasant but it turns into a nice relationship drama after that, with some meta stuff. Glad i saw it.
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Jan 17, 2019 21:54
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Bumblebee 3/5 - Exactly what the trailer made it out to be but in a good way, mostly thanks to keeping the scale small and a lot of charisma from Hailee Steinfeld and wit from the script (having a female writer made a world of difference). It's nothing special but a fine family action movie that only looks better and better in the context of its franchise.
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Jan 17, 2019 22:00
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got any sevens posted:Just watched Upstream Color for class and wow
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Jan 17, 2019 22:20
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Coaaab posted:What other films are on your syllabus? Ida (2013), Tree of Life, Mommy (2014), Moonlight, Anerican Honey, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Breathless, Whiplash, The Conversation, Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind A pretty good list that i've only seen a few of so far
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Jan 17, 2019 23:26
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I've seen some utter hatred for American Honey online, I've got it to watch myself and quite intrigued as to if I'll like it.
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Jan 17, 2019 23:36
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American Honey is so goddamned good, and Andrea Arnold rules. Beanpole will not tolerate shittalking that film.
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Jan 18, 2019 01:36
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EL BROMANCE posted:I've seen some utter hatred for American Honey online, I've got it to watch myself and quite intrigued as to if I'll like it. I'm not too big on American Honey, but I can't imagine hating it unless the very sight of Shia LaBeouf sends you into a frothing rage.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:14
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Hm, maybe I'm getting it mixed up with something else as I'm seeing mostly positive reviews too. Damnit, it's gonna wind me up trying to work out what I thought it was!
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Jan 18, 2019 20:52
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EL BROMANCE posted:Hm, maybe I'm getting it mixed up with something else as I'm seeing mostly positive reviews too. Damnit, it's gonna wind me up trying to work out what I thought it was! American Hustle?
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Jan 19, 2019 13:33
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Samuel Clemens posted:I'm not too big on American Honey, but I can't imagine hating it unless the very sight of Shia LaBeouf sends you into a frothing rage. He's so good in it tho
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Jan 19, 2019 21:02
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Breathless: 3/4, story and themes still hold up and the jump cuts were cool at the time but it does drag just a tiny bit for modern sensibilities Glass: 3/4, slower paced than i expected but everything built together and i was moved by the ending, but i doubt i'll rewatch it any time soon Solaris (72) - uhmmm ?/?, it was real slow but real good too, and i loved that organ song got any sevens fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jan 21, 2019 |
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Jan 20, 2019 18:29
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The Wild One (1953, Lazlo Benedek) [Blu-ray] - 3/5 Hiroshima mon amour (1959, Alain Resnais) [Blu-ray] - 4.5/5 Scenes from a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray - miniseries] - 5/5 Funeral Parade of Roses (1969, Toshio Matsumoto) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 Age of Consent (1969, Michael Powell) [Blu-ray - Director's Cut] - 4/5 Saraband (2003, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 3.5/5 In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914, Edward S. Curtis) [Blu-ray] - 3/5 The Undesirable (1915, Michael Curtiz) [Blu-ray] - 2.5/5 The Captive (1915, Cecil B. DeMille) [Blu-ray] - 3/5 From the Life of the Marionettes (1980, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 4.5/5 Chopping Mall (1986, Jim Wynorski) [Amazon Prime] - 1.5/5 The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984, W.D. Richter) [Amazon Prime] - 3/5 Hour of the Wolf (1968, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 3.5/5 Shame (1968, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 4.5/5 Winstanley (1975, Kevin Brownlow/Andrew Mollo) [Blu-ray] - 5/5 The Passion of Anna (1969, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 3.5/5 Fårö Document (1970, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 4.5/5 Fårö Document 1979 (1979, Ingmar Bergman) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 The Last Movie (1971, Dennis Hopper) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 The American Dreamer (1971, Lawrence Schiller/L.M. Kit Carson) [Blu-ray] - 3.5/5
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Jan 21, 2019 06:04
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Egbert Souse posted:
Yes.
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Jan 21, 2019 07:45
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Egbert Souse posted:The Wild One (1953, Lazlo Benedek) [Blu-ray] - 3/5 The stirring story of a man coming to grips with his homosexuality, giving the pretty girl a Runner's Up trophy then riding off to hook up with Lee Marvin.
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Jan 21, 2019 14:13
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The Third Man (1949) - B+ Note that I boosted this by a full letter grade from my actual opinion (C+) on the basis of "Well, people say this is literally one of the greatest movies of all time, and some element of that must be technical achievements that won't stand out to me as such 70 years later." To be blunt, this just seemed really bland to me. The performances were OK, the story was OK, the music was OK, but not much here gripped me. The Orson Welles and Trevor Howard performances were great, I thought the ferris wheel scene was well-done, and the last 10 or so minutes was a real standout, but that's it. If someone asked me to describe a generic noir story, I feel like it would be a 1-out-of-3 chance that I would come up with this story outline. Perhaps that's a mark of its success; maybe I saw dozens of retellings of this story in other forms of media in my childhood or something and consequently the original felt generic? Maybe. I was disappointed overall, even if it ended strong. I've done a little reading about the movie after the fact and there's a lot that impresses me conceptually about the film, but that still doesn't change the experience I had actually watching it. surf rock fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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Jan 22, 2019 00:45
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surf rock posted:The Third Man (1949) - B+ The story is good, but most of why I love The Third Man is that it's stacked with atmosphere. People talk a lot about sci-fi or fantasy movies having world building, but every time I see it, I feel like I'm sent back to postwar Vienna. And there's so many great scenes and moments. Like the porter pointing down to "heaven" and up to "hell" or all the banter between Calloway and Martins. Even if it wasn't so damned absorbing story-wise, there's the cinematography that's just stunning from start to finish. Not just the night scenes and use of dutch angles, but the way Alida Valli is lit or Lime's friends looking like ghouls. And I love the editing. Probably my favorite bit is when Martins visits the hospital and there's a shot of a teddy bear being tossed into a rubbish bin. I'd definitely give it another chance. Did you see it via DVD or Blu-ray, perhaps?
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Jan 22, 2019 03:56
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Egbert Souse posted:Chopping Mall (1986, Jim Wynorski) [Amazon Prime] - 1.5/5 Please review this classic. Watch "Won't You Be My Neighbor" if you like to CRY. "Uncle Drew" is a nice basketball movie that you should be able to predict if you have a brain but is worth seeing because it's a nice, pleasant story. A small airplane screen is actually perfect for "Searching." See if it you have dipped into the Computer Simulator genre of films and are into them. See Bumblebee if you have a morbid curiousity about these Transformer movies because it's the best one, but there's enough there to see why maybe this franchise is often difficult to justify watching. "Aquaman" is worth seeing if you want a fairly light-hearted comic movie that doesn't take itself too serious and feels more inspired by Tron than Batman. One of my most respected professor in college's favorite movies is "The Wild Bunch" and I put off seeing it because you never want to be like "ah this guy that taught me a lot's taste sucks" but actually it's quite good, definitely worth seeing if you liked westerns, or you enjoyed Red Dead Redemption 2. It's a 60s film, and it looks like it, and sounds like it, but there's some really modern stuff going on in the story telling.
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Jan 22, 2019 04:56
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Egbert Souse posted:The story is good, but most of why I love The Third Man is that it's stacked with atmosphere. People talk a lot about sci-fi or fantasy movies having world building, but every time I see it, I feel like I'm sent back to postwar Vienna. And there's so many great scenes and moments. Like the porter pointing down to "heaven" and up to "hell" or all the banter between Calloway and Martins. Even if it wasn't so damned absorbing story-wise, there's the cinematography that's just stunning from start to finish. Not just the night scenes and use of dutch angles, but the way Alida Valli is lit or Lime's friends looking like ghouls. And I love the editing. Probably my favorite bit is when Martins visits the hospital and there's a shot of a teddy bear being tossed into a rubbish bin. I watched it on MUBI streaming, which I'm guessing is better than DVD but worse than Blu-ray. It did look very nice. It's interesting, I don't disagree with anything you said but those things also don't make a movie for me unless the atmosphere is one that I care about, and I guess I'm just not interested in postwar Vienna? That is a little odd though, because when I think of other films released around that time that are also heralded as all-time classics, like Bicycle Thieves or Citizen Kane or Seven Samurai, I was so much more invested in and loving those films because something about them hooked me. Given that Bicycle Thieves specifically was just postwar Rome instead of Vienna, I don't know why it had so much more appeal. Just nothing brought me into The Third Man until Lime appears 80% of the way in, at which point I was so bored that even an excellent finish could just balance the whole thing out rather than turn it around completely. I do want to give a shoutout to Calloway's line of "you were born to be murdered" because that's terrific. I'd like to see Casablanca and Tokyo Story, which come to mind as the other films from that era that I know are in the conversation of all-time classics. I haven't watched them, though.
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Jan 22, 2019 05:06
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surf rock posted:I watched it on MUBI streaming, which I'm guessing is better than DVD but worse than Blu-ray. It did look very nice. I'd still recommend seeing it again. I've watched The Third Man almost every year since 2002 and I find something new to love every time. And get on Casablanca. I'd recommend the Blu-ray if just because it's a stunning restoration (4K) and only $8 on Amazon. Even has a Roger Ebert commentary.
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Jan 22, 2019 06:36
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Bird Box I have basically stopped watching Netflix OG movies since they pretty much always end up disappointing despite having an excellent initial premise. This is probably the best Netflix Original movie but it still doesn't deliver fully and is a bit too long. The acting is horrible in it imo, like some scenes I felt the actors were gonna start laughing and I would realize these are bloopers. Still the setting is interesting even though it hard aped The Happening which is another movie with an interesting premise but horrible acting and doesn't deliver. The mystery aspect in both movies is never explained or if it is explained it is so stupid and makes you realize the whole movie was a waste. I watched it with my dad and that made it a better experience. Interested in what other people thought of this.
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Jan 22, 2019 18:31
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Glass 3/4. Not everything worked; there were some scenes, plotlines, and performances that had me worried, but for every weak element there's a good or even great counterpart. Importantly, it ends strong and is, when judged as a whole, a refreshing take on a genre I'm otherwise sick of. I walked out of the theatre kind of shocked that Unbreakable, Split, and Glass form what has to end up being one of the best super hero movie trilogies, but a couple of days later that opinion hasn't changed.
Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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Jan 22, 2019 19:19
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Glass was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever watched and I’ve seen every M Night movie I think. Like goddamn that was Suicide Squad levels of awful (but better shot and acted to be fair).
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Jan 23, 2019 06:58
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I agree that the middle, by which I might mean "most of the movie" is very weak, but there are elements of the movie that work very well. I came in with low expectations that were exceeded so that's coloring my reception.
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Jan 23, 2019 15:42
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Widows 2.5/5 Well this was disappointing. I see what they were trying to do about racism and misogyny and poverty and violence and politics and corruption but it just doesn't work on any level, unfortunately including the "heist movie" level. The film spends an hour and fifty minutes to set up a very lame robbery, then drops a surprise on you, only to resolve it within like 30 seconds with no drama. Which would've been maybe ok of everything up to that point made sense and added up to something, but it doesn't. Ugh. Rick posted:Please review this classic. Chopping Mall 3/5 Robocop, which was released a year later, clearly owes a lot to this movie, as it establishes the "security robot gone mad" trope so perfectly. The said security bots work in the mall, obviously, and go mad after multiple lightnings strike outside on an otherwise clear and dry night. Coincidentally, a bunch of teenagers working at different places around the mall decide to have an orgy at the furniture store after closing time, because why not. They end up being locked in for the night and have to fight for their lives. I should probably get right out of the way the fact that this being Jim Wynorski's best movie isn't quite enough to make it actually good, but the good news is that it does mostly work as a "so bad it's good" film, which many terrible flicks fail to do. The plot is complete nonsense but it doesn't really matter as it wastes little time on the setup and goes straight into it. It's competently filmed and acted, and the effects are ok for the time with pew-pew lasers and some giant explosions. What prevents this from being a better, more fun movie is that it doesn't go quite over the top enough with most kills (the headshot and the molotov scenes were great though) and better writing could've gotten a few more jokes out of it.
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Jan 27, 2019 15:53
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Rogue One (2016): A I was really impressed with this movie. It did a great job of tying itself with the events of ANH without seeming like things were being retconned. It had a lot of little touches that no doubt thrilled longtime Star Wars fans but didn't seem (at least to me) like fanservice wankery. I also now understand all the positive buzz about the "really cool Vader scene" that I heard without getting spoiled. If I could level one criticism of Rogue One (and it's pretty minor), it'd be that the plot seemed like slipping on a comfortable shoe. I've noticed that the sequel trilogy movies all seem to have very similar plot arcs. Although I liked Jyn and Cassian as characters, they seemed (to me) very similar to Rey and Poe. That's not a huge deal; I know that part of what makes movies like Star Wars so successful is the fact that their characters are archetypes that speak to common experiences. Mainly, though, Rogue One was an excellent movie, and especially the way I saw it: TNT aired it last night and then had ANH on afterwards. Leia being handled the Death Star plans and saying that they were "hope" and then seeing the blockade runner being attacked at the beginning of the original movie gave me chills.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:34
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mobby_6kl posted:Widows 2.5/5 I felt the same way, the set up was so interesting and intricate that I felt like it should've been season of tv ala The Wire, and a few scenes (opening, car ride) are among my favorite of the year, but the film just lands with a thud at the 2/3rd mark and that twist was loving lame to the max. Still, I like that he tried. It did feel different and risky, and not every experiment can be perfect.
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Jan 27, 2019 22:34
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Kiss Me Deadly - 80/100 Rosemary’s Baby - 85/100 Cold War - 93/100 Vice - 50/100
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Jan 27, 2019 22:38
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Fargo (1996): 8/10 The Haunting of Hill House (2018): 10/10 They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018) 7/10 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) 9/10 Dirk Gently (2016) 8/10 Hot Fuzz (2007) 8/10 Town on Trial (1957) 7/10 Superbad (2007) 8/10 Grand Prix (1966) 8/10 Point Blank (1967) 8/10 On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) 6/10 High Noon (1952) 7/10 Willkommen bei den Hartmanns (2016) 6/10 The Conversation (1974) 9/10 All That Jazz (1979) 10/10 Bigger Than Life (1956) 9/10
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Jan 27, 2019 23:01
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Life and Nothing More (2017): 8.5/10 I appreciate movies that feel like real life. The main characters are very believable - a teenage boy who is roiling with emotions but is unable to articulate his feelings or decide who he is, and a single mother who must constantly search for the strength to meet her many responsibilities. The actors are nonprofessionals who improvised some of their dialogue, giving the scenes a non-cinematic rhythm and a good deal of authenticity. The cinematography is simple and direct. I felt a lot of compassion for the characters. I think that was the goal of this movie - to encourage the audience to feel compassion and understanding for people whose everyday lives are extremely challenging. Pan's Labryinth (2006): 8/10 (Rewatch) I want to love this movie, but I just really like it. Visually, it's outstanding. However it always feels thematically disjointed to me. Maybe I'm a dullard and the connections between the guerrillas-vs-fascists storyline and the Ofelia-in-Wonderland storyline are obvious to everyone else. To me these plots, which are both decent in their own right, just don't seem to be all that much in conversation. I wasn't surprised to learn that the film's initial writing process consisted of del Toro sketching and doodling in a notebook for years and years before writing a script. His imagination is fantastic, but the end result seems a bit scattershot to me. Even if the film lacks cohesiveness, it's strong on a scene-by-scene basis, particularly the fantasy scenes. The Pale Man at the feast is one of the most iconic images from the films of the 2000s. A fantastic standalone horror scene. There are also some strongly affecting scenes with the Maquis standing up bravely to (or sometimes faltering against) the Francoists. Definitely a good and interesting movie that every film lover should see.
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Jan 29, 2019 05:43
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