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Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - 82 Alita: Battle Angel - 89 Police Story - 87 Police Story 2 - 80 Midsommar - 83 Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters - 89 A Brighter Summer Day - 90 The Last Black Man In San Francisco - 90 Long Day’s Journey Into Night (w/ 3D) - 91 Murmur of the Heart - 88 Toy Story 4 - 75 Only God Forgives - 89 Life Force - 85 Point Blank - 89 Avengers: Endgame - not good Amazing Grace - 86 The Beach Bum - 69 High Life - 87 Transit - 78 Her Smell - 81 Climax - 88 Elena - 89 Leviathan - 86 Life Is Sweet - 85 Medium Cool (+ supplements) - 90 Aparijito - 90 Apu Sansar - 90 Baal - 87 Love With The Proper Stranger - 80 Pickpocket - 85 Charulata - 93 Arabian Nights - 73 Never Look Away - 75 The Canterbury Tales - 79 The Decameron - 83 Bicycle Thieves - 89 Summer With Monika - 84 Eyes Without a Face - 86 Us - 79 Eraserhead (rewatch) - 90 Women In Love (rewatch) - 90 Arrival (rewatch) - 87 Annihilation (rewatch) - 90 When We Were Kings (rewatch) - 93 Altered States (rewatch) - 89 Upstream Color (rewatch) - 90 Before Sunrise (rewatch) - 90 Before Sunset (rewatch) - 92 Before Midnight (rewatch) - 90 A Most Violent Year (rewatch) - 87 Live. Die. Repeat. (live.watch.rewatch.) - 85 BeanpolePeckerwood fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jul 26, 2019 |
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Jul 26, 2019 02:52
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - 82 I assume that’s the Boorman Point Blank, right?
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Jul 26, 2019 03:47
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Is Transit 78 or 79?
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Jul 26, 2019 04:36
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Is Transit 78 or 79?  78thanks for the spot  DeimosRising posted:I assume that’s the Boorman Point Blank, right? Oh hell yeah
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Jul 26, 2019 05:37
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DeimosRising posted:Decline, Police Story, and Greetings/Hi, Mom! If you have time Still need to see Part III, but I find Spheeris' documentaries to be fascinating. A stark contrast from the gritty feel of the first Decline, The Metal Years has more production values and straddles the line between plausible and staged. Does it matter? I think the highlight is Ozzy Osbourne making breakfast and coming off as an incredibly lucid and introspective artist. Police Story is a lot of fun. Other than some stuff that doesn't play well (it's kind of misogynist), the stunts are incredible, Jackie Chan oozes charisma, and it's funny! I also dig the incredible use of scope photography. Looking forward to part two. Greetings and Hi, Mom! are sort of companion films. Still not the most polished (Murder a la Mod is my favorite of De Palma's early work so far), but lots of great scenes. Greetings has some really hilarious jabs at the Kennedy assassination (involving a nude model). Also there's a line that still makes me crack up about DeNiro's character trying to act uber right-wing to avoid service and getting inducted instead. Hi, Mom! is way more clever, especially with a great opening scene with Charles Durning and a somewhat frightful "Be Black Baby" film within the film. Easy to see why DeNiro became a star since he really comes off as likable in these early films.
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Jul 26, 2019 05:52
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A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night So this goes into the vampire canon as "the one where a vampire skateboards, her cloak billowing behind her," and it's still not a goofy movie at all. There's so much here that's just on the actor's performances and the director's trust in the audience to get there with the actors. I loved so much about this movie, even if it is pretty lean overall. There's a few shots that just go on and on, almost to the point of parody of other super-long shots, and the amount of time given for those performances to breathe and those actors to wordlessly do their job and act is breathtaking. This movie also ranks very high on the Cat scale, with a chonky boi on screen for a good portion of the runtime.
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Jul 27, 2019 16:07
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Bug Wars (2000) - entertaining, wouldve been better at an hour than padded to 75 mins or whatever it was. The last two women on earth fight an alien invasion in a semi-heartfelt way. There actually were some good moments and few bad ones. Filmed in the seattle underground with a crew of 7 (their boom pole was a pvc pipe!) it was supposed to be a Troma film but troma didnt like the final cut enough. Shame, because it actually worked well enough. Sound and lighting were fine, acting almost was. Theoretical sequel spoilers the girl was going to get a bubble built by the aliens to breath in, and she wouldve ridden them like horses
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Jul 27, 2019 16:45
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The Predator (2018): C/C- This movie starts off as something fun, but peters out into being a rather shallow, soulless cash-grab and an attempt to create a new franchise. I think the writers were trying to strike a balance between the over-the-top action of Predator ("I ain't got time to bleed.") and the goofier comedy Predator 2 ("Okay pussyface, it's your move." "poo poo happens"). However, they did what Hollywood does worst, and tried to up the stakes with bigger and badder threats (like "Predator dogs") and flashy (i.e. lovely) CGI. I feel bad for Trevante Rhodes and Thomas Jane, who bring their A game to the movie. They steal every scene they're in, but even the best acting can't save bad writing.
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Jul 27, 2019 21:43
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Wheels on Meals: C It's a little slow to start, but picks up in the second half. Would have rated it a solid B except the terrible dubbing was a constant distraction. I've read there are a couple of English dubs of this and I apparently saw the bad one. Police Story: A This was more like it. Fantastic action, hugely entertaining. Ip Man 2: B lmao this is just loving Rocky IV. Better made though, and the fights are great. Ip Man 3: C+ It starts out strong enough, but after he rescues his son, the film just meanders aimlessly. Mike Tyson's in it for 5 minutes, three of which are the fight with Ip Man, which was cool as a spectacle, but dumb and ends in a draw, possibly because Tyson's ego wouldn't let him lose a movie fight.
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Jul 28, 2019 13:15
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bitterandtwisted posted:Wheels on Meals: C Is there a version with a decent sub? It's good to know what to look out for since I do want to see this movie someday as it's another one that has been hyped to hell and back as amazing and I want to see what the fuss is about. Some more Kung Fu movies as I put off watching the last samurai film I have: Operation Condor 2: The Armour of the Gods 2/10 The plot to this Jackie Chan movie is barely hanging together and the only thing to really recommend about it is a pretty good car chase (sponsored by Mitsubishi Motors TM) about 30 minutes in and a good random fight scene near the end. But I wouldn't bother seeking this movie out for those scenes. Masked Avengers 8/10 A great Venoms movie about a clan trying to track down and stop a gang of masked killers. Some epic fight choreography with tridents featured as the main weapon of the film which is a rare weapon to see. The dub is serviceable, probably one of the better ones I have heard. My only regret is that my DVD is a poo poo VHS transfer but apparently the version on streaming services is of higher visual quality and widescreen but still dubbed according to the trailer. I may re-watch this one on Amazon.
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Jul 29, 2019 03:15
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Turbinosamente posted:Is there a version with a decent sub? It's good to know what to look out for since I do want to see this movie someday as it's another one that has been hyped to hell and back as amazing and I want to see what the fuss is about. I bought an 8 movie bluray boxset for ~£20. Turned out it was a Finnish import, so I should be thankful the dubs are in English at all - had a real sinking feeling when the opening menu screen prompted me to choose Norsk, Danske, Svenska or Suomalainen 
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Jul 29, 2019 10:51
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Eureka has done a fantastic blu-ray release of Wheels on Meals, but it's Region B only afaik.
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Jul 29, 2019 12:53
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - 82 Are you doing reviews. If so, consider these, by roaring singular demand
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Jul 29, 2019 22:47
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drat with as much love as there is for Wheels on Meals you'd think some one would capitalize on it with a passable release. Anyways have some more kung fu reviews I knocked back a couple more tonight: Deadful Melody 5/10 I had too high a hope for this one because of the name and premise where everyone is chasing after a deadly lyre in order to rule the martial arts world. And yes, it works like the one in Kung Fu Hustle did. I enjoy the occasional bullshit magic kung fu movie but this one didn't really do anything cleverer with the concept than just basic ki blasts and wire fu for extra jump height. Near the end scenes just started happening to propel the plot forward and then the immediate slam ending after the villains are dead was way more noticable because they kinda half assed an epilogue but it was pretty vague on some major plot points. The Flag of Iron 6/10 This was also a colossal disappointment especially having just watched Masked Avengers from the same director and group of actors. This one leaned way more on the typical betrayal and brotherly/clan loyalty plot this director does and less so on the action. And while the Venoms always put together great fight sequences, spears with large flags are not as intense as the tridents of Masked Avengers nor as impressive athletically as the training fight with the rings in Crippled Avengers. Plus I have the Celestial Pictures release of this one which clocks in at nearly two hours, which wouldn't be so bad if the main character didn't have to be ABSOLUTELY SURE that the senior brother had in fact betrayed him and was the one who had their master killed in order to take over the clan.
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Jul 30, 2019 06:22
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Ralph Breaks The Internet: C+ Pretty good, not as fun/good as the first one imo. Northanger Abbey (2007): B+ Probably one of the more accessible Austen stories for non Austen fans. This adaptation works pretty well for a made-for-TV movie. Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse: A- I liked basically everything about it. Didn't really love it, but it was consistently good from start to finish. I can see why people love it so much. Austenland: C+ Pretty funny at times, but mostly frustrating at times from a story perspective. (Can you tell my wife loves everything to do with Jane Austen?) Beauty and the Beast (2014): B My wife and I watched this basically on a whim, and it was surprisingly interesting. More of a Cocteau adaptation than any sort of Disney-fied version, which was refreshing. Solid performances all around and pretty good special effects to boot. We watched it with an english dub over clearly french dialogue, which was only slightly distracting.
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Jul 30, 2019 16:53
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InterrupterJones posted:Austenland: C+ So, uh, has she seen the Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice called Bride and Prejudice? It's been years since I watched it but it remains the only Jane Austen thing I have ever liked, and that includes the actual book too.
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Jul 30, 2019 21:46
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Halloween (2018): B+/B This is a fairly solid horror movie with good comedic sense thanks to two of its screenwriters being Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. I'd go so far as to say that the humor is the strongest part of the movie, especially the banter between one of the supporting characters and the kid she babysits. The story is pretty good for the most part, although the granddaughter's subplot is kind of boring/tropey IMHO. It doesn't get too over-the-top until the end, which is when you might start asking yourself questions like how does Michael Myers have time to stash the dead husband's body in a closet or why doesn't Laurie use her gates to trap Myers. The end also includes a witty twist, and a bullshit cut to maintain the specter of doubt around Myers' demise necessary for incoming two movies.
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Jul 31, 2019 01:38
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Suspiria (2018) : Ok, what happened at the end? Worse, that sequence felt really random. Overall, I am underwhelmed like I was with the original movie.
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Jul 31, 2019 07:41
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Young Frankenstein (1974): A The 'dart in the policeman's hat' sight gag is one of my favorites of all the movies I've seen.
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Aug 1, 2019 05:23
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Turbinosamente posted:So, uh, has she seen the Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice called Bride and Prejudice? It's been years since I watched it but it remains the only Jane Austen thing I have ever liked, and that includes the actual book too. Yes, she's seen it and loves it. She went through a Bollywood phase a while back, so that one was a no-brainer to watch. I need to find it to watch myself eventually.
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Aug 2, 2019 14:17
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AstroWhale posted:Suspiria (2018) : Ok, what happened at the end? Worse, that sequence felt really random. Overall, I am underwhelmed like I was with the original movie. I liked that it goes batshit explodey heads off the rails at the end but I was pretty bored by it overall too..felt like it dragged a bunch, for me. I had no allegiance to the OG version either, that one was just aight too (mostly gets by on the over the top lighting)
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Aug 3, 2019 08:24
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The Farewell - 2019 - Apparently in Chinese culture, sometimes families choose not to tell their elderly loved ones they have a terminal illness, believing it's more important to let the loved one die with happiness instead of fear. This does not sit well with Americanized Chinese woman Billi, who loves her Nai Nai and wants to spill the beans. The family travels to China to say clandestine goodbyes trying to shield Nai Nai from the truth of her cancer diagnosis. This was a lovely film. It's all about the tension of family secrets from the banal to the bombastic. The performances are rich and emotional and I liked the depth most of the family members get. This film is funny, sweet, tense, and intimate. I think it also explores really interesting ideas about community, family, individuality, and duty. It's a small film with big ideas and I think it strikes a perfect balance. I can't say enough great things about this film. 5/5 That Dang Dad fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Aug 3, 2019 |
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Aug 3, 2019 22:09
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Ip Man, 2008 One of the big problems with wuxia and kung fu movies more generally is that a lot of its characters are real (like Yip Man) or semi-real in the way Robin Hood is to Western audiences (like Wong Fei-Hung). These characters are not only demigods, but literally a vital link in the country's emotional past, characters who are without flaw or vice, who can not only never lose, but are afforded a demigod status where they cannot, to quote an instruction from an unnamed wrestling company regarding a review of its video game in a magazine, "shown in a prone or weakened position." This presents a few storytelling challenges, much like storytelling about Super-Man. Ip Man comes down firmly on the side of hagiography, deciding that the eponymous man not only saved China in WWII but single-handed led the people to defeat the Japanese forces using Wing Chung kung fu. Which, OK then, if that's what you're going with. The movie itself inflicts a neck-snapping tonal shift every 20 minutes or so, as we just have a quick interstitial pop-up saying "The Japanese invaded" and now our goofy little 'competing martial arts dojos' movie is a wartime tragedy. Oh wait, now it's a 'town takes on the axe gang!' feel-good sports movie. Oh wait, now it's a 'martial arts showdown for the soul of a nation' Shaw Brothers affair. The movie can't decide which tone it wants, and tries to just do all of them at once, leading to a bizarre melange of plots and stakes that never match up. None of this matters, not really, when Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen are both at the top of their game like this. There's just too much beautiful choreography to even pretend that this movie is anything other than a hundred-minute sizzle reel just for Donnie Yen and his stunt team.
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Aug 5, 2019 01:15
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The Peanuts Movie: This is how you update a franchise. The new style complements the old one perfectly. And all the important stuff from the strips and TV show is right there. And best thing: No celeb voice actors. They cared about this. And it is like 60 minutes long, like the old TV movies. I heard there was some Ice Age short in front of this, while in theaters? It wasn't on the DVD and I don't care about that franchise.
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Aug 6, 2019 07:37
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Shrecknet posted:Ip Man, 2008 The Grandmaster and Ip Man: The Final Fight both do better with Ip Man as a character. Tony Leung and Anthony Wong both playing him as a person, rather than Donnie Yen's kind of ridiculous paragon of virtue.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:23
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Horror Express - 5.5/10. I mean if nothing else it continually defied expectations. I rather enjoyed how there was effort made in providing the characters with accents right up until Telly Savalas couldn't be bothered. House That Dripped Blood - 4.5/10. I want a longer peek at the cinematic world where Jon Pertwee outranks Cushing and Lee. V/H/S Viral - 4/10. The wraparound and accompanying interludes were a flop and the shorts were mediocre. The first is basically a cheapo Tales From the Crypt. The second is pretty much a lost 90s Outer Limits. The third is a little overlong but felt the most in step with the seties. Detention (2011) - 6/10. Has some pretty big hits and more than a handful of misses. The Invitation - 7.5/10. My feelings on this will likely fluctuate the more I think on it, but I'm not sure whether I'll feel better or worse about it. Cave of the Living Dead - 4/10. For all the distinctive small details it's rather perfunctory. Adlai Stevenson fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Aug 19, 2019 |
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Aug 19, 2019 06:07
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Hallelujah the Hills (1963, Adolfas Mekas) [Blu-ray] - 2.5/5 (meh, but I liked all the film references) Duel in the Sun (1946, King Vidor) [Blu-ray] - 3/5 (absurd western, but some good scenery chewing, especially Walter Huston's character) Uptight (1968, Jules Dassin) [Criterion Channel] - 3.5/5 (Hadn't heard of it before, interesting take on The Informer) Police Story 2 (1988, Jackie Chan) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 (More epic than the first and plenty of great setpieces) La Chinoise (1967, Jean-Luc Godard) [Blu-ray] - 3/5 (Godard pontificates, but with style and I like the eyeglasses scene) Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019, Quentin Tarantino) [theatrical DLP] - 4.5/5 The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981, Karel Reisz) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 (interesting film, worth it for the cast and score) American Gigolo (1980, Paul Schrader) [Criterion Channel] - 4/5 (fun neo-noir with influence from Godard and Bresson) Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee) [Blu-ray] - 5/5 (rightfully considered a masterpiece) Death Rides a Horse (1967, Giulio Petroni) [Blu-ray] - 4.5/5 (one of the best spaghetti westerns I've seen) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018, various) [UHD] - 4/5 (lots of fun, visually stunning) Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988, Pedro Almodovar) - 4/5 (definitely want to see more Almodovar) Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001, John Cameron Mitchell) - 3.5/5 (I probably didn't get it, given I'm not LGBT, but it's visually dazzling and the songs are catchy) Brewster McCloud (1970, Robert Altman) [Blu-ray] - 3.5/5 (one of the weirder Altmans I've seen, but I liked it) Scent of Mystery [aka Holiday in Spain] (1960, Jack Cardiff) [Blu-ray] - 2.5/5 (it doesn't stink, but interesting to see Denholm Elliot and Peter Lorre star in a film together) Sangaree (1953, Edward Ludwig) [Blu-ray 3D] - 3.5/5 (fun drama about class clashes set in 1700s Georgia) Dragonfly Squadron (1954, Lesley Selander) [Blu-ray 3D] - 3/5 (another Korean War film with good 3D, but kind of silly plot) Goodbye to Language (2014, Jean-Luc Godard) [Blu-ray 3D] - 2.5/5 (just like Godard to completely gently caress up 3D and deliberately make it obnoxious) Powaqqatsi (1988, Godfrey Reggio) [Blu-ray] - 4/5 (beautiful and more human-oriented than Koyaanisqatsi) Naqoyqatsi (2002, Godfrey Reggio) [Blu-ray] - 2.5/5 (not as good as its predecessors, but I get what Reggio was going for on this) The Golden Head (1965, Richard Thorpe) [Blu-ray] - 2/5 (cloying Disney-lite film with bad dubbing, but George Sanders and Buddy Hackett almost make it worthwhile) Rewatches: The Lady from Shanghai (1947, Orson Welles) [Blu-ray] - 4.5/5 Koyaanisqatsi (1982, Godfrey Reggio) [Blu-ray] - 5/5 The Golden Age of Television (all DVD): Marty (1953, Delbert Mann) - 4/5 (very good, but Rod Steiger doesn't hold a candle to Ernest Borgnine's charisma in the theatrical remake) A Wind from the South (1955, Daniel Petrie) - 4/5 Bang the Drum Slowly (1956, Daniel Petrie) - 5/5 (early role for Paul Newman) Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956, Ralph Nelson) - 5/5 (holy poo poo Jack Palace is amazing in this and from a Serling teleplay) The Comedian (1957, John Frankenheimer) - 5/5 (another great dramatic part for Mickey Rooney, and another Serling play) Days of Wine and Roses (1958, John Frankenheimer) - 3.5/5 (a bit overlong and I have a feeling I'll like the Blake Edwards film more)
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Aug 24, 2019 04:37
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dead don't die - 2/5 - just didn't work for me at all, shame, great cast. has some neat little moments so it's not an avoid, but it's a def watch on streaming kinda flick. xmen dark blah blah - 0/5 - hey so this was just garbage and killed any future versions of this universe and also made disney cry a single tear made of hundred dollar bills..the best part of this is they let the guy that already wrote a lovely adaptation of the story for xmen 3 direct a second lovely version of the same story. uhhhh why?? jokes on me for going to this, i clearly learned nothing from the apocalypse one. childs play - 1/5 - i don't know why this exists. it gets points for having mark hamil voice a thing and also aubrey plaza at her most disinterested in being in something plazaness. all the charm of a tiny doll doing hacky slasher lines are gone 100% and it just feels like a lame black mirror episode. here's hoping it did so lovely we don't get another 9 sequels like the existing version. midsommar - 3/5 - it was good but i hold ari aster up to hereditary now and it never even came close for me. i have no interest in watching his even longer cut if that comes out. i'm glad i saw it, but it goes into the same pile as mother! and the suspriria remake for me...movies i'm on the fence about and could argue for or against depending on the day (also, overly long and drawn out, batshit climaxes out of nowhere, tries to be more then surface level horror) spiderman ffh - 1/5 - way to suck all the fun out of the first movie marvel. the only person who looked like they enjoyed themselves was jake gyllenhall but good god was this painful. things like the villian just expository dumping his entire backstory and motivation to a room full of people who have been working for him for years etc etc...i get that this was the tail end of a large arc of movies but jesus christ could y'all actually try? kinda glad to be done with MCU, really don't care what happens with this property in the future at this point. reservoir dogs - rewatch - 4/5 - first time i bothered to check out the 2 deleted scenes after all these years..they are..pretty drat bad but still neat from a nerdy perspective. i don't know what else to say about this movie, it holds up. first time seeing it large and with a real sound system and the audio is the biggest give away of the low budgetyness of the thing which was a new experience for me. pulp fiction - rewatch - 5/5 - i mean, his best movie by far right? no contest. everything about it is solid from the casting, to the visuals, to the intercut stories, to the cultural influence. this dude will never make anything near this movie ever again, but I'm good with that jackie brown - rewatch - 4/5 - my second time watching this after seeing it on a tiny tv letterboxed back in the late 90s and HATING IT. as a follow up to pulp and dogs it's incredibly jarring at how different it is but that made me really enjoy it this time around. i never realized how much of a gently caress you to his critics this movie was..like having all the violence occur out of frame, in the dark or in a massive wide shot...plus 20+ years ago I don't think I was even aware of leonard elmore whereas present day me has loved a lot of his work and adaptations of it...basically i should have given this movie more of a chance and it turns out i dig it, who knew. kill bill the whole bloody affair - 4/5 - to be fair, this is a fan edit..i didn't time travel to 2011 and get to be one of the few people who saw the official version in his theater...it does everything his official merged cut does except the one MAJOR thing that I wish they also copied. I guess spoilers for a 15 year old movie herein- in the merged cut he edits out the daughter reveal that ended part 1 as a cliffhanger making the first time she sees her daughter in part 2, the same time the audience does as well. i actually dig that cut and it had been so long i didn't remember that twist at all and i wish i had experienced that character change in this long rear end rewatch... other changes being the black and white sequence now in full color, sophie getting her other arm brutually hacked off (i loved how savage this makes uma thurman and wish he kept it) and a few cut shots of gore from the anime sequence. it works as one long 4 hour movie and i still really dig the entire thing as a whole..it's the best example of making a live action film with the aesthetic of japanese anime that i can think of to this day. if he ever does make a vol 3, i'll be there on opening night. once upon a time in hollywood - 3.5/5 - i liked it, but i'll echo everyone's criticism of what was the point really of this? as a film nerd i loved the love letter to late 60s hollywood, i loved the buddy film aspect of leo and brad..i hated the bruce lee thing as thats quintessential tarintino up his own rear end, and i didn't really get the point of the last act, but as a tex avery fan i laughed my rear end off. it didn't drag at all for me, but i doubt i'd rewatch it again and in terms of this style of films i'd rate inglorious over this.. inglorious basterds - rewatch - 4/5 - it's cinema paradiso meets the dirty dozen..i mean, how could i not like this film. i'd say after pulp fiction this is his second best for me... deathproof - 3/5 - first time seeing the standalone feature version...i like it overall but it's also one of his weakest films because it's so one note (grindhouse). great as individual sequences, not so much as an entire narrative. that soundtrack is so god drat good though, my person fav of all his OSTs. scary stories to tell in the dark - 2/5 - i'm 35..i grew up with these 3 books and they left a pretty large impression on me (those illustrations!)..all you needed to do was just adapt the drat stories..so in that sense, it works and it's rad to see moving versions of those illustrations...BUT they decided to give it a really lovely knock off stranger things/it framing device that is so hacky and weak and straight up un-necessary that it kills the whole thing for me. it's a shame, this screams for an anthology-style take and they just hosed it up totally. payday (1973) - 4/5 - caught a screening of this little known cult classic starring a much younger rip torn as a complete piece of poo poo. it builds on the popular theme of the anti hero, but goes a step further to make him absolutely irredeemable, but rip plays it charming as gently caress. highlights include giving his mother a fistfull of barbituates, fist fighting over a dog and leaving groupies on the side of the road for fun. if you liked what rip did on larry sanders, this feels like the genesis of that character without the "heart of gold" aspect. ANNNND shel silverstien wrote all the country songs rips character performs in the movie, which was a total mind gently caress. the amazing johnathan documentary (theater with director Q&A) - 3/5 - i'm a big fan of the directors work (comedy bang bang, tim and eric, jon benjamin has a van) and the subject matter of a dying vegas magician sounded intriguing. it's hard to review this without spoiling the entire structure change of the film so i'll just say i enjoyed that aspect of it more then what i thought it originally was setting out to be. i did laugh out loud at a lot of moments in it, but ultimately it's just OK as a whole piece...the q/a session ended up being moderator only so we couldn't ask him anything, and the prefab questions really didn't expound at all on the film but since it's on hulu right now as well and i'm sure a ton of you have seen it/will see it i'm willing to relay what was said in that q&a if anyone is interested zer0spunk fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Aug 24, 2019 |
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Aug 24, 2019 14:57
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midsommar aspires to it, but in the end it has nothing on mother! which is still one of the best films of the 2010s
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Aug 24, 2019 21:05
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Peanut Butter Falcon 5/5 probably the best film of the year. Still need to see Last Black Man in SF and The Farewell though.
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Aug 25, 2019 05:02
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Egbert Souse posted:The Golden Head (1965, Richard Thorpe) [Blu-ray] - 2/5 (cloying Disney-lite film with bad dubbing, but George Sanders and Buddy Hackett almost make it worthwhile) This one getting a BD release sounds interesting because it'd be like opening up a time capsule i.e. it currently has only 43 votes on IMDb.
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Aug 25, 2019 05:28
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Zogo posted:This one getting a BD release sounds interesting because it'd be like opening up a time capsule i.e. it currently has only 43 votes on IMDb. Kind of an interesting story. Apparently, it only played for about a month in one theater before disappearing. It's a US-Hungary co-production. Cinerama had all the 3-panel actual Cinerama travelogues they own restored/remastered between 2012 and 2016 - This is Cinerama, Cinerama Holiday, South Seas Adventure, Seven Wonders of the World, and Search for Paradise. In addition to the travelogues, they also had rights to a few additional films - Holiday in Spain (65mm feature originally released as Scent of Mystery - the first and only Smell-o-Vision film), Windjammer (only feature made in rival Cinemiracle process), The Golden Head (shot in 35mm 8 perf Technirama and 65mm). Flicker Alley released all those on Blu-ray, as well as Cinerama Russian Adventure (compilation of several Russian Kinopanorama travelogues with new music and narration), The Best of Cinerama (compilation of the five original US travelogues), and Flying Clipper (65mm travelogue released in the US as Mediterranean Holiday). I actually own all the Blu-rays, plus Warner's How the West Was Won. They vary in quality. This is Cinerama is pretty important since it's the film that pushed the industry to widescreen. It was the highest grossing feature of 1952 and from playing in just one theater. The Golden Head isn't that good of a movie, but it does have some nice location footage of Budapest and the curious pairing of George Sanders and Buddy Hackett as art thieves. It also benefits from being in pretty good shape since they had the complete camera negatives while the rest are of varied quality (Holiday in Spain/Scent of Mystery survives only as a mix of a few 65mm faded negatives and faded prints).
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Aug 25, 2019 05:46
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Once upon a time in Hollywood: There was no point to it. It was meandering until the finale. It was self-indulgent to the max. And I loved it. Shoot it into my veins.
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Aug 29, 2019 11:52
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I liked this take on it; "it's a movie about people and the city running out of time, but they don't know they're running out of time". And I mostly agree, it was entirely self indulgent but a ton of fun and not exploitative if that's something about Tarantino that you don't like.
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Aug 29, 2019 21:15
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AstroWhale posted:Once upon a time in Hollywood: There was no point to it. It was meandering until the finale. It was self-indulgent to the max. For whatever reason I never got around to posting a review of this but these are my thoughts pretty much word for word.
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Aug 30, 2019 00:53
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Apollo 11 documentary. Today was my second screening, but the first one in IMAX and holy cow, is it an experience and a half! It's a very unpretentious and straightforward film, 90 minutes long, starting with the day before the Saturn V launch, and ending essentially right as the austronauts are welcomed back home. Best part of the movie for me is the first "act", building up to the launch from Florida; the music and imagery syncs together perfectly to add extreme suspense, regardless of us knowing how it pans out! Wonderful film, can't recommend it enough.
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Aug 30, 2019 01:38
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:
are you doing reviews?
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Sep 1, 2019 01:15
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Apollo 18 - 65% It's good enough to earn three credit hours, but not good enough to pass the class and count for your major's requirements. I can handle movies with a slow burn like this and I like the premise. I had ruined the surprise for myself already because I was aware of things in the movie from when it came out in 2011, so I knew about the rock spiders already and read a bit about the movie before watching it. It's interesting when they find the Russian lunar lander and the dead cosmonaut and are trying figure out what happened and the space madness that follows. What I didn't like were the rock spiders and how they just seem to know how to disable communications and destroy pieces of a lunar lander that conveniently prevent it from escaping. The highlighted spots in the beginning when they're setting up the sensors make it seem like the rock spiders are huge, but they seem to just be little creepy crawlies the size of a tarantula.
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Sep 1, 2019 03:00
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UNRULY_HOUSEGUEST posted:Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - 82 Slaapaav posted:Only God Forgives - 89 poo poo, I sort of dropped the ball there. Had a busy summer. Thanks for patience, and hopefully some of my rambling makes sense. ----- Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - 82 Tarantino has always been hit or miss with me, but while I think this is one of his more enjoyable watches I also expect that it will end up being one of his more divisive, perhaps upon generational lines. My dad normally hates Tarantino films but ended up loving this one, in large part because of the amazing production design, and I can see it appealing a lot more to people who lived through that decade. It just feels incredibly unfocused to me, kind of sloppy and hastily put together. There are sections that are completely absorbing as well as others that are interminable and cringeworthy. The film just kind of coasts along on a highway of attractions, occasionally running out of gas and without much thought about a larger point, but maybe that incoherence is in fact the point. A picture of a rather incoherent decade in all of its facets. This is, however, the first Tarantino film I've seen that makes the director come off as an old man with a rather square view of the world. A fun ride but I probably wouldn't watch it again. Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters - 89 If George Lucas ever did anything in his life worthy of a pat on the back it was to help produce this film, which is simply a gorgeous theatrical collection of thought experiments and provocations set in post-reconstruction Japan, concerning personal identity and the ways in which it clashes and flows with social identity. I feel like Mishima definitely drew inspiration from Jean Cocteau but also managed itself pass down inspiration to films like Greenaway's adaptation of The Pillow Book (a film I've always loved). The Phillip Glass score truly sweeps you away and the unorthodox uses of color make small stage sets feel like world events. I also feel like Shraeder was clever in both enhancing and suppressing certain aspects of Mishima's complex, at times paradoxical (for he was also on some level anticommunist), political outlook into a more focused critique of the way in which Capitalism had sucked the collective spirit from Japanese life in the latter half of the 20th Century and replaced it with domestication and materialism. An entrancing and confounding film. Only God Forgives - 89 Speaking of divisive films, up to this point I'd heard a lot of negative poo poo about Only God Forgives, and since Refn is another director I'm not over the moon about (I like the Pusher films, not all that sold on Drive) I expected to be on the outs with this, but in the end I kind of loved it. It feels like the kind of movie that would be accused of being all style over substance but I really felt like it had a lot going on under the hood for all of its posturing and short runtime. Certainly it is a little more concerned with instilling a specific mood and tempo of dread in the viewer than it is with detailing character motivations but I was really taken with how lean and unpredictable it all felt, and the performances all gel in a really satisfying way. A real feast for the senses with some disturbing poo poo on its mind. Leviathan - 86 I've watched the entire catalogue of Zvyagintsev at this point and while I appreciate them all on a political and formal basis Leviathan just didn't hit me in the way Loveless, Elena, or The Banishment did. That doesn't mean it's bad; all the pieces are there: the harsh condition of life in contemporary Russia and how this often creates intractable situations for women, our separation from nature in part due to the dehumanizing power of heavy industry, and the alienation of personal craft, family, and social identity when met with the destructive influence of unrestrained capital. Also, the cinematography is loving on point, as usual. What was missing here for me was a certain element of actor chemistry or emotional accessibility, elements I feel were particularly strong in those other three films. For all their reserve, stoicism, and focus on political metatext and economic symbolism, I really felt like Loveless, Elena, and The Banishment were incredibly intimate films, whereas The Return and Leviathan are hard and distant, and I like them a little less because of that. Life Force - 85 I feel like time can only do more and more justice to this film, itself a vast, expensive, lovingly constructed b-movie homage that tanked in the most monumental way with the audiences of its day. For the horny male the main attraction will always be an unflappable Mathilda May in her birthday suit uttering deadpan double entendres about energy transfer, but to balance it all out you've got pure British fantasy overacting, incredible production design, the propulsive Mancini score, and Captain Picard's first on-screen kiss How an idiosyncratic treasure like this ever even got made in the first place is beyond me. I also just like the idea of a film that depicts, in a most over the top fashion, patriarchal society literally crumbling overnight when confronted with the sheer terror of the unclothed female body. Though, I guess that's the foundation for most western religions.  Point Blank - 89 This film is one hell of a ride and mindfuck, even just in terms of its editing which careens between violent and dreamy at a moment's notice. I simply love how uncompromising Lee Marvin is, even in his advancing years, and on a number of occasions the way he says "I just want my money" sounds exactly like post-millennial comic television parody. Nothing can stop Marvin's murky and principled personal determination to get the last word or deathstare or punch in over a syndicate of pigfuckers. It's hard to believe that this was Boorman's directorial debut, but I'm sure a good portion of the film's energy and swagger depended on Lee Marvin's incredible energy and confidence. Even so, the way a rather standard revenge plot was edited into something more disturbingly psychological still feels avant-garde today, and probably would've struck audiences as nothing less than loving alien in 1967. Avengers: Endgame - not good I've got the original Infinity War comics from my childhood right next to me atm and I've been flipping through them trying to remember what I thought of IW when I was younger, not because I was gaga over comics, but because they're kind of an aberration among of the several titles I collected at the time with my dad's encouragement; my favorite titles at age 12-13 were Silver Surfer and Uncanny X-Men during its Claremont run. I don't know what I was smoking with these Infinity War and Infinity Gauntlet crossover items though, because even at the time they seemed like a cheap and hollow final stab at easy money before the 90s comic bubble that established the blueprint for mature graphic novel storytelling finally popped, the printing quality was changed industry wide, and the bronze age was put into its grave. It was eventually supplanted by a more cross-cultural market where all that was really left on the shelf for Marvel were third string characters, reboots, and alternate universes. I guess it seems fitting that the MCU bust should come about in the very same manner, as the audience fairly rapidly dissolves under a suspicion that the mega-crossover film saga of the last 10 years was in fact a skin-deep, risk-adverse, consolidation of movie experiences that were far more engaging prior to the emergence of the first Iron Man film's dull template. Onward to the next commodified media frontier! I agree with arguments from certain film critics who've concluded that the adult audience's obsession with the MCU is one of consumer therapy and power fantasy in the face of social and political alienation under capitalist austerity. Good riddance to this dull poo poo. For all of its faults, the hyper-violent action cinema of the 1980s has and will continue to age far better than this homogeneous crap from the House of Mouse.
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Sep 5, 2019 00:31
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| # ? May 14, 2024 21:46 |
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Point Blank is absolutely one of the best edited action films of all time. It makes San Francisco seem more like a layer of purgatory
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Sep 5, 2019 02:42
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