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brick 3.5/5 - the 30s slang wore on me until the last third and then I started to come around.. It was alright, but not particularly clever as pulp. I've seen all this dudes stuff at this point and this would be the one I like the most. knives out 2.5/5 - I thought it was kinda eh. Also weirdly reminded me of the westing game? I'm just not into Rian stuff (did not like looper, star wars was pretty weak), I gave him a shot. Whatever his next thing is I'll just stream it way after the fact. Ah well.
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Dec 17, 2019 07:21
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Same.
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Dec 17, 2019 07:42
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I have a feeling our best of 2019 lists are going to be pretty similar..I need to catch up these next few weeks with a few things I missed. e: I forgot, I liked the dudes work on Breaking Bad, but I think that's more to do with directing eps in the last season and being some of the more plot-heavy ending run eps to boot so I give that more to the subject matter. Maybe he just needs to stop writing the stuff he directs? And I haven't seen brothers bloom...I hesitate to ask..decent? zer0spunk fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Dec 17, 2019 |
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Dec 17, 2019 07:48
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I'll be posting my Oct through Dec ratings soon, which includes a huge stack of criterions I had been ignoring. Then I gotta make a 2019 list. Is there best of 2019 list thread in CineD? I know they do that poo poo in games but I always get the feeling like it's just kind of hard for a lot of people to see some of this poo poo that gets zero distribution.
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Dec 17, 2019 07:56
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I think this was where we did it for 2018. Which makes sense, just throw together everything you rated highly across this year. I've only seen 41 things from 2019 so far...There's still at least a dozen off the top of my head that I'm behind on. And probably another 50 that I have 0 interest in. I have a really good feeling about uncut gems based on how much I loved good time..Hoping I'm not wrong...
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Dec 17, 2019 08:05
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zer0spunk posted:I have a really good feeling about uncut gems based on how much I loved good time..Hoping I'm not wrong... You won't be wrong.
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Dec 17, 2019 09:09
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zer0spunk posted:
Uncut Gems is good but I'm going to warn you now that it isn't nearly as intense as Good Time. Uncut Gems is funny and it is exciting, but it took a little while for me to get into what the film was because I was expecting (hoping) that it would be as adrenaline pumping violent dark and suspenseful as Good Time. Which granted is a pretty high bar to clear. Edit: maybe the trailer made it clear but I only watched the smallest bit of the trailer because I didn't want to spoil anything for myself
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Dec 17, 2019 19:38
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Most of the Friday 13ths have appeared on Prime. Friday 13th Part 2: C Friday 13th Part 3: C Friday 13th Part 4: C Friday 13th Part 6: C Friday 13th Part 7: C+ Friday 13th Part 8: C- Remarkable consistency in quality, but then again they're all the same movie. The Carrie vs Jason bit was fun. I've previously seen 1, 5 and X, Which in comparison I'm going to grade B-, C and, gently caress it, A respectively. X shook things up and was funny and memorable and didn't have all the gory bits cut out.
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Dec 18, 2019 12:56
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The last 45 minutes of Uncut Gems was gripping and Adam Sandler is very good but I found all the characters pretty annoying. I agree with the above poster that it wasn't as good as Good Time B-
mcmagic fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Dec 19, 2019 |
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Dec 19, 2019 03:14
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Jumanji 3: 3/4, slightly better than the second. Also the callback at the end to the original jumanji was cute, if they ever make a jumanji 4 it could include the grownup kids from the first, visiting their aunt 
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Dec 19, 2019 03:59
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Ad Astra was disappointing. Cool visuals, nice cast but meh overall. Except for the research station stuff, that was pretty cool.
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Dec 20, 2019 08:14
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Yeah that’s a pretty kind overview of it too, it was crap.
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Dec 20, 2019 16:05
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Cross-posted from my Letterboxd BLACK CHRISTMAS (2019) As students leave campus for winter break, a group of sorority sisters are disappearing one by one. Revenge for exposing a fraternity president as a date rapist or something more sinister? BLACK CHRISTMAS ('74) is often considered the first modern slasher film, so a remake/homage like Black Christmas ('19) won't get the luxury of being judged on its own. Fortunately, I think it's a fun update that preserves the spirit of the original but strips away some of the bloat and adds a dash of freshness from the current era. I think the lead actors have some good charisma and chemistry on screen and I enjoyed spending time with them. The film is well-paced (only 92 minutes!) and never lingers too long anywhere. Most of the shots are standard for films of this type, but there are a few inspired sequences and compositions that I really responded to. The film deviates from the original version in some major ways, at times evoking other influences like SUSPIRIA, which I though was a well-executed choice. This film is nakedly political and I think some audiences are having a tough time with that. For me, the political themes inform the action, the motivations, and ARE the horror of this horror film. Is it on the nose? Sure, but this isn't a contemplative art house meditation; it's a slasher. The villain is patriarchy. As a cohesive whole, I think it works. I have minor nitpicks; the politics could have been sliiiightly more subtle without losing anything. The finale was crowd-pleasing but a little jumbled on screen and hard to follow in places. Also, I don't know if my theater was having audio issues but it sounded like there was a lot of ADR in the film that was occasionally distracting. But, minor stuff. This movie is a blast, I think it would play well at a party, and I wouldn't be shocked to see it become a minor cult favorite down the road. 4/5 stars
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Dec 20, 2019 20:45
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EL BROMANCE posted:Yeah that’s a pretty kind overview of it too, it was crap. It's a nice looking film that tries...that's the best I can say about it.
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Dec 21, 2019 00:50
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:It's a nice looking film that tries...that's the best I can say about it.
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Dec 21, 2019 14:59
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I need Ad Astra to either be WAY better or WAY worse. Like it wants to be this profound movie focusing on the simple questions but it also wants to have moon pirates and killer space monkeys and it meshes really badly. It doesn't help that the profound things it wants to say are not terribly interesting and closer to, say, something on a greeting card.
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Dec 21, 2019 17:47
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axelblaze posted:I need Ad Astra to either be WAY better or WAY worse. That is a pretty good short summary. A friend I know, whose opinion I very much respect, found it to be a very affecting film. Without going into personal details...I think the degree to which Ad Astra affects a viewer might hinge on the relationship with their father, or perhaps lack thereof. The mood and cinematography are there, and it's a very weird film in some ways, which I appreciate, but whatever larger socio-political statements it's trying to eke out between rollercoaster scenes either aren't explored at all or land with a complete thud. The weirdness and moodiness is cancelled out by the more generic crowd-pleasing blockbuster moments. Calling it 'Apocalypse Now...in space' is kind of an embarrassing association because not only does Ad Astra blatantly pay homage to surface themes, pacing, and scene progression from AN but it does so seemingly without understanding or caring what AN was getting at. Ad Astra is chock full of the spectacle of something like Apocalypse Now without any grasp of the perverse context for that spectacle. On the other hand, if the point of the film actually was 'how far out does industrial, rational man have to go to appreciate mother earth?'...then that idea (and its increments) was explored far better last year with First Man. TychoCelchuuu posted:What about the score? I thought the score was great. I though certain parts of the AA score were really dazzling, but again if I were comparing I'd have to give this one to Justin Hurwitz's score for First Man.
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Dec 21, 2019 22:50
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:It's a nice looking film that tries...that's the best I can say about it. They didn't try at all, it's a movie that has a high opinion of itself and is trying so hard to be high art on the level of something like 2001, but it's schlock.
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Dec 21, 2019 23:43
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SCheeseman posted:They didn't try at all SCheeseman posted:is trying so hard to be high art 
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Dec 21, 2019 23:48
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Haha. I guess what I should have said it felt like only half the production team was trying. It's a very visually accomplished film but they serve a half-baked story.
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Dec 21, 2019 23:50
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I'd agree with that.
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Dec 21, 2019 23:51
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The moon base best exemplifies the laziness in the writing. It uses Subway on the moon to bluntly make clear that Roy and his dad are Big Thinkers and are above petty things like consumerism, but what the gently caress does bread even look like when baked in .3g? It may seem kind of trivial, but much like the escalators they used in the previous scene it makes obvious they didn't actually think about what they were writing beyond the most surface level. Space pirates out of nowhere with virtually no background explanation on why or how they even exist (where the gently caress can you hide on the moon?), a bunch of nonsense on Mars with an appearance by the only actor with an ounce of personality followed by Roy essentially killing a bunch of people to get to his psycho dad and get back his girlfriend they added in post production. God Ad Astra fuckin sucks.
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Dec 22, 2019 00:08
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SCheeseman posted:The moon base best exemplifies the laziness in the writing. It uses Subway on the moon to bluntly make clear that Roy and his dad are Big Thinkers and are above petty things like consumerism, but what the gently caress does bread even look like when baked in .3g? It may seem kind of trivial, but much like the escalators they used in the previous scene it makes obvious they didn't actually think about what they were writing beyond the most surface level. Space pirates out of nowhere with virtually no background explanation on why or how they even exist (where the gently caress can you hide on the moon?), a bunch of nonsense on Mars with an appearance by the only actor with an ounce of personality followed by Roy essentially killing a bunch of people to get to his psycho dad and get back his girlfriend they added in post production. God Ad Astra fuckin sucks. Does Subway even bake bread? pretty sure they just drop dehydrated tablets into a 3D printer
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Dec 22, 2019 00:23
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The second unit tried to make a completely different film and the corporate overlords flexed hard at the poor director to make and market the film as an action sci-fi epic, giving us the half baked mess we ended up with.
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Dec 22, 2019 01:03
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SCheeseman posted:The moon base best exemplifies the laziness in the writing. It uses Subway on the moon to bluntly make clear that Roy and his dad are Big Thinkers and are above petty things like consumerism, but what the gently caress does bread even look like when baked in .3g? It may seem kind of trivial, but much like the escalators they used in the previous scene it makes obvious they didn't actually think about what they were writing beyond the most surface level. One of the things I really liked about The Expanse was when I was watching an early episode and it had what looked like a lovely cgi of a hummingbird because it was flapping its wings very slowly. And then I realised it was because gravity is low, so why would it flap quickly?
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Dec 22, 2019 11:12
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The Expanse may have spoiled me a bit. It's not perfect in regards to science, but most of it's accuracy issues seem to stem from budget constraints rather than ignorance or laziness. I remember reading that scripts were colour coded depending on the environment/gravity, which might seem to be a stylish flourish or gimmick, but the story and action are usually written with those aspects in mind too. Unlike Ad Astra where our hero easily jumps around in a rocket while it's blasting off (?!) and somehow survives slamming into a spacecraft at high speed without going splat like a bug. Ugh. UGH! BAD MOVIE
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Dec 22, 2019 11:31
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I ain't done this in a really long time but I ought to be writing more so here's a grip of flicks I watched recently. Let me know what you want to know about. Moontrap (1989): 50 The Naked Dawn (1955): 90 The Invitation (2015): 70 The Lighthouse (2019): 85 Parasite (2019): 85 Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018): 75 Big (1988): 70 Sunday in Peking (short) (1956): 70 El Sur (1983): 85 The Souvenir (2019): 85 Letter from Siberia (1957): 70 Zero for Conduct (short) (1933): 65 Rodeo (short) (1969): 70 A Hidden Life (2019): 85 Shazam! (2019): 50 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946): 85 The Mustang (2019): 80
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Dec 23, 2019 18:13
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Kull the Conqueror posted:The Souvenir (2019): 85
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Dec 23, 2019 22:35
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Kull the Conqueror posted:Moontrap (1989): 50 I haven't heard much about this one.
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Dec 23, 2019 23:50
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The Souvenir (2019): This film packs a lot of brutal truth, not just about being young and in love, but about being a young filmmaker. There are scenes where main character Julie finds herself stupefied and unable to direct a crew that’s waiting for her, and I felt my 20s come rushing back. It’s got a sort-of stream-of-consciousness narrative that feels like it’s jumping between memories more than a conventional structured story, and it does it very successfully. The performances, in particular the two leads, are stellar. It’s must-see for the arthouse crowd. 85 A Hidden Life (2019): There is no more than a handful of directors who could make this premise work for three hours. You have this rigid, seemingly simple narrative core: an Austrian man conscientiously objects to the Third Reich. But every scene feels like another layer is added to the philosophical puzzle: as much as his neighbors deride him, as much as his priest calls him a blasphemer, and the government and the military take umbrage with his position, there’s this subtle performative layer where a lot of them think he’s right, but can’t do anything about it. The movie is a masterful marriage of the intellectual with the poetic, in both imagery and theme. 85 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946): This is a remarkably earnest work about leaving the war behind. When else could the glossy veneer of Hollywood fall away than when the war ended? It’s got plenty of the typical epic family drama tropes, but then you have a character played by a nonactor who lost his hands, carrying everything that came with that experience into his performance. It’s very moving. 85 The Mustang (2019): Matthias Schoenarts is such a loving good actor. And, wildly enough, the horse plays up to his level. The whole story is so French, a lot like Audiard’s dramas, a story of redemption through connection. The cinematography is tops, especially in what appeared to be an opening documentary sequence of rounding up a huge quantity of wild horses in the Nevada desert. Bruce Dern’s mentor character feels a little out of place, like he was the comic American indie compromise to the dark, French vision, but it doesn’t harm the experience too much. 80
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Dec 23, 2019 23:56
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Zogo posted:I haven't heard much about this one. I hadn't either, and I almost felt like a failure. How did an 80s space sci-fi horror flick starring Bruce Campbell and Walter Koenig pass me by? Moontrap! Turns out, mainly because it's trash. For one, Walter Koenig plays the handsome, witty lead (!!!) and Campbell is the sidekick. For another, the effects are really crummy and it does little to escape being labelled an Alien clone. It's totally forgettable. 50
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Dec 24, 2019 00:19
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Kull the Conqueror posted:I hadn't either, and I almost felt like a failure. How did an 80s space sci-fi horror flick starring Bruce Campbell and Walter Koenig pass me by? Moontrap! Turns out, mainly because it's trash. For one, Walter Koenig plays the handsome, witty lead (!!!) and Campbell is the sidekick. For another, the effects are really crummy and it does little to escape being labelled an Alien clone. It's totally forgettable. 50 IDK, any movie that has Bruce Campbell fistfighting a vending machine isn't completely unredeemable.
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Dec 24, 2019 00:29
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Is The Irishman worth fhe 3.5 hours?
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Dec 24, 2019 01:32
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TommyGun85 posted:Is The Irishman worth fhe 3.5 hours?
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Dec 24, 2019 01:47
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TommyGun85 posted:Is The Irishman worth fhe 3.5 hours? I certainly think so, but the drama works better on a huge screen. It's not a super flashy film, especially for Scorcese; it's far more concerned with the nuances and interstices of covert power so it ends up being a slow burn. I know people who both love it and hate it, but I think it stands out particularly in the editing department...keeping so many moving parts coherent is pretty impressive.
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Dec 24, 2019 01:49
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TommyGun85 posted:Is The Irishman worth fhe 3.5 hours? It's worth the 7 hours when you watch it twice within a week.
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Dec 24, 2019 04:36
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TommyGun85 posted:Is The Irishman worth fhe 3.5 hours? It's the same as the other gangster movies but with cgi
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Dec 24, 2019 08:59
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If watching it in one sitting is too much for you, you can split it up into a miniseries following this guide: https://www.irishpost.com/news/the-irishman-three-part-hack-174651
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Dec 24, 2019 15:34
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Miniseries watching style is amateur hour. https://twitter.com/nicolewboyce/status/1201262216558723074?s=21
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Dec 24, 2019 17:13
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Cats is a movie that defies rating or critique. It may be the first movie to achieve cult classic b movie status in its opening weekend? My showing was almost full (Disney AMC, Orlando) and the crowd was super into it. Singing and dancing in their seats, cheering at every ridiculous hiss or meow, etc. The performances were all fine I guess with a few standout moments, but the filmmaking was an absolute mess. Characters suddenly being transparent on the CGI backgrounds, unfinished costumes/CGI, the most nauseating camera work I've ever seen (seriously, drunk shaky cam in close up dramatic long shots), and a lot more that I can't even begin to wrap my head around. One of the worst films of the decade but a fantastic movie going experience. A+ Star Wars - Rise of Skywalker 2/5 and that's being generous for a few sentimental moments. About the only thing they did well was handling Leia given Carrie's death. I was surprised how much they were able to have her scenes worked into the film and give her a real presence in the story. Everything else is a total trainwreck which is a huge let down following the excellent Last Jedi. I was ready to finish out this trilogy really loving these characters but JJ tried so hard to appease the toxic backlash of TLJ that he ruined the entire trilogy by trying to be too self aware and explain away everything. It also has no memorable action, no fun dog fighting or even good lightsaber fights, certainly nothing on par with Poe's counter attack on the beach in TFA or the throne room scene in TLJ, and nothing as emotionally resonant or world building as Luke and Yoda's scene in TLJ. This was also by far the most egregious display of Disney homogenization with two huge plot points being a 1:1 transfer from Endgame, down to my friends and I mockingly predicting lines that were said seconds later. Many characters have no arc and get no resolution, and don't get me started on his treatment of every female character in the film. Just awful. I guess Palpatine was fun but goddamn they even made him an idiot.
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Dec 24, 2019 20:18
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