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Sunset Boulevard Max is the villain of this picture
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Dec 29, 2023 05:04
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Im watching Mars Attacks for the first time. I did t realize it was an ensemble film. How did this thing ever get made?
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Dec 30, 2023 10:44
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Professor Shark posted:Im watching Mars Attacks for the first time. I did t realize it was an ensemble film. How did this thing ever get made? I think the vfx success of the Mask enabled all sorts of stupid poo poo to be green lit. CGI was just new and cool looking enough to blend with big stars as long as they didn’t move much. It’s an awful movie.
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Dec 30, 2023 10:48
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It’s really bad. I thought at first that the casino owner was the preacher from Deadwood until I realized it was Jack Nicholson playing two roles. I spotted Kyle Chandler as a random Secret Service agent.
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Dec 30, 2023 11:42
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My recollection was that Tim Burton was riding high off Batman and there was an appetite for "ironic" throwback 50s stuff (he had also just scored with Ed Wood). It was sort of a proto-Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow experimental thing to see if people wanted to just do the midcentury again
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Dec 30, 2023 11:42
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Same year as independence day
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Dec 30, 2023 11:48
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ShoogaSlim posted:killers of the flower moon Saw Raging Grace last night. It was pretty good, it sort of reminded me of the creepy children's dramas you'd sometimes get on UK tv back in the 80s and early 90s. There's some really good ideas and social commentary, David Hayman is absolutely terrifying as the terminally man the main character is supposed to be looking after (all the acting is great, tbf), and the fantastic score really helps build the mounting dread. The film is just let down a bit by an overly slow and boring build up to the main thread, and a sort of 'made for tv' feel to the whole thing.
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Dec 30, 2023 15:11
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Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe- Saw this last night. If you're a  goon and the name Mr.Dressup means anything to you, you really should watch it. I honestly don't think we'll see the likes of Ernie Coombs or Fred Rogers in our lifetimes again, they were pure, unfiltered goodness for children.
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Dec 30, 2023 16:28
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I saw Mars Attacks when it came out in the theater with a pile of friends. Everyone at the time was looking forward to it. I remember a packed theater and everyone laughing their asses off the entire time. I haven't seen it since, but when I think of it, I get start giggling. I also remember the CGI being realllly good.
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Dec 30, 2023 16:31
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Erin M. Fiasco posted:Almost Famous - Went into it blind and got nothing I expected and something far better than I could have ever imagined. Watched the Bootleg Cut and I can't believe they gave me a three hour movie where at no point I thought to myself "wow, it's three hours". Just enthralling. Loved it. Favorite movie of all time. Actually think the extended "bootleg" cut is worse than the theatrical version. Anyways.....I watched 'Leave The World Behind'. Had a very Rain Johnson-ish setup which wasn't unwelcomed. Bogged down a bit in the middle section, but it never lost my attention through the 140 minute run time. I appreciate that there wasn't some wacky twist at the end. Movie didn't need a twist to pull the mystery together. End scene with the daughter getting to see the final 'Friends' episode was a lame joke to close out the movie. Know this isn't the thread to rate movies we've seen.....but I give it a 7.5/10. Thought it was pretty good. Not great.
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Dec 30, 2023 18:31
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Dredd was so cool, I definitely see the comparisons to The Raid. Way more splashy use of color than I expected for such a dreary setting. Judge Dredd should have punched more people.
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Dec 30, 2023 19:14
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Mars Attacks is good actually
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Dec 30, 2023 21:56
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Just watched Rebel Moon. lovely lens, lovely over-produced sfx, lovely slo-mo that just highlights the fact that literally nothing that happens thats vaguely cool is actually real, lovely zero-stakes action sequences, one-dimensional unrealistically evil baddies that just exist so you feel good seeing them get their asses kicked, not one single original idea in the whole drat thing. Not even any cool looking spaceships. A shameful movie with shameful fans.
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Dec 30, 2023 22:16
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The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2012) Can't remember why I had this on my Blu-ray shopping list but I'm glad I picked it up when I saw it in HMV recently as I really enjoyed it. It wasn't the film I was expecting, and while watching it, it became an even more different film. The late appearance of Bradley Cooper and the sudden killing off of Gosling's character was a surprising and brave move, as he was first billed and featured him in every shot of the previous 50 minutes, but I think it worked really well. And despite him leaving the film early, his presence could still be felt in the subsequent scenes. I wasn't sure if Cooper was going to get killed off as well by Ray Liotta's menacingly corrupt cop, but the 15 year time jump did make me say "what the gently caress" out loud. Again this change in focus worked for me though, as seeing the legacy of these two very different fathers helped reinforce the themes of the movie. Beautifully shot on 35mm with some action-filled long shots, including that great opening scene of Gosling walking from his trailer to the motorbike stunt tent, and getting on his bike and riding round the cage. I also loved the melancholic score from the goat Mike Patton, I'm off to find if it's streaming anywhere.
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Dec 31, 2023 01:07
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toiletbrush posted:Just watched Rebel Moon. lovely lens, lovely over-produced sfx, lovely slo-mo that just highlights the fact that literally nothing that happens thats vaguely cool is actually real, lovely zero-stakes action sequences, one-dimensional unrealistically evil baddies that just exist so you feel good seeing them get their asses kicked, not one single original idea in the whole drat thing. Not even any cool looking spaceships. A shameful movie with shameful fans. Yeah, it had a framework that could have worked but didn't. I don't even mind that it wasn't original. A sci-fi remake of Seven Samurai has a lot of potential to be good, just like the Western remake was. I think the final nail in the coffin for me was that the final battle takes place in the middle of nowhere (literally open space) instead of the planet where the settlement is that they're fighting for.
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Dec 31, 2023 18:01
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Carpet posted:The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2012) watched this again this year after not having seen it in a few years. bumped it up to a 5/5 movie for me on letterboxd. everything works so well. ben mendelsohn in this gives one of my favorite supporting roles of all time.
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Dec 31, 2023 21:02
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The Holdovers Man, the emotional tension kept building and building...and building...and then nothing. I was so ready for this film to hit me like a ton of bricks and instead it was like slowly getting pelted with tennis balls until you just kind of stop noticing it. It's still funny as hell, the Kid and Giamatti are giving great performances, and it's got some solid emotional work, but it never broke through to me the way I thought it would. I figured this would be an emergency substitution on my Top Ten of this year, but it barely would make my runner up list. 
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Jan 1, 2024 05:35
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Just watched Saltburn on Prime. What a great movie, holy cow. Barry Keoghan was fantastic.
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Jan 1, 2024 07:26
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Gaius Marius posted:The Holdovers even tho i feel similar about the lack of explosive emotional climax, i still love this movie just for the journey it takes you on. it feels more grounded and realistic that things kinda end with a whimper instead of a bang. most of the time, that's just how things pan out. there's more story for these characters after the credits roll, and we got a glimpse at a moment of their lives they'll look back on and remember that was transformative but still just one chapter of many. and still, there's a question that hangs over it all of "what could have been" if things would have played out differently, which i think is all the emotional weight i needed for it to be successful in my eyes.
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Jan 1, 2024 08:46
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Carpet posted:The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2012) Really well-executed movie. Sweeping, ambitious and I feel like it nails everything it is going for thematically - I remember a lot of people being a bit down on the final act on release but it ties the plot together nicely. One of Cooper's better roles for mine. I also rewatched Past Lives and loved it this time after being fairly lukewarm after my initial watch. Go figure. I respect how quiet and contemplative it is about big concepts. Wonka was the only thing playing in English at a cinema overseas and it was fine. Better than I expected. Completely forgettable but it captures the spirit well and looks great.
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Jan 1, 2024 15:37
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After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985) My last film of 2023, and I'm glad it was this one as it was hilarious. Griffin Dunne plays the office everyman Paul (he literally works AS a word processor) who has the worst night of his life in downtown New York. It felt like an anxiety dream and it never lets up in pace - as soon as we think Paul has found a way to get back to his apartment, another insane character or situation appears to hinder his progress (surly subway ticket salesman, angry cab driver, 60s obsessed cocktail waitress). It's a very different kind of Scorsese movie and it's another example of how wrong people are who typecast him as only making gangster movies - let Marty make more comedies. I can see how it might have influenced something like Beau is Afraid or The Big Lebowski - Linda Fiorentino's Kiki also felt like a proto-Maude Lebowski. I watched it from the 4K Criterion release and the packaging, picture and sound quality were great - despite only having mono audio it was very clear and the needle drops sounded good, and there was some nice grain in the image.
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Jan 1, 2024 16:10
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Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire: Part One is like so much blockbuster genre filmmaking today — promising wonders on the installment plan. As long as you're willing to make a down payment of 2+ hours for the setup, Zach Snyder will deliver an epic sci-fi adventure...someday. The problem is there's nothing here to suggest a significant return on your investment. The main characters aren't allowed to have personalities, save for Charlie Hunnam. A character rides a griffin and then does nothing else. Anthony Hopkins plays a robot who disappears for the bulk of the movie. I don't mind brainless spectacle for its own sake but this is just brainless table-setting for a spectacle to come later. It's a cinematic IOU with no collateral.
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Jan 1, 2024 20:17
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Two re-watches: The Mummy I went to a VR tour experience thing of the Great Pyramid over Christmas, which put me in the mood for some ancient Egyptian guff. And this is solid if sort of racist guff (plenty of devious and lecherous foreigners in this film, with dubious hygiene, unfortunately; although at least they do throw in some dumb yee-hawing Americans and a nitwit Brit to balance it out slightly), with top-quality dialogue like, “It has begun - the beginning of the end!” The first Pirates of the Caribbean cribs a fair bit from this (tonally and with some of the supernatural stuff), but does it all better imo. However this does have Rachel Weisz(!) and Rachel Weiss’s hair(!!!). Brendan Fraser adds a touch of camp to the whole thing by not being massively persuasive as a rough-around-the-edges soldier of fortune type. I like that for tech, budget or rating reasons they leave the “mummy sucks the life out of people” effect to the viewer’s imagination, which is more, uh, effective. Shoutout to the Egyptologist, who has two photos on his desk, both portraits of himself. How else would we know whose office it is, I guess? If they did a straight-up remake today I guess it would star Chris Pratt? Yuck. The Mummy Returns Complete dreck. Numbing action, lame banter, irritating new child character, godawful computer graphics, no sense of wit, adventure or romance whatsoever. There is one bit that had me hooting, when they discover on a temple wall a handy WikiHow guide for defeating the baddie, complete with “how to stab a guy” illustration. Also, at one point a character is dangling desperately from a ledge above an abyss into hell, hanging on by their fingernails and begging for help, and I’m pretty sure at one point they raise both hands to gesture emphatically. Really the only interesting thing about this movie is how antiquated it feels as a fantasy-adventure sequel that just opts to do a straight-up retread of the first film. Once LOTR and the Matrix sequels happened, I feel like the paradigm shifted, and veered towards multi-part sagas that significantly expand the mythology - see Dead Man’s Chest in 2006, and ultimately the MCU. I guess this movie demonstrates that the ol’ “die hard-er” approach isn’t necessarily any better?
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Jan 1, 2024 20:55
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BigHead posted:Just watched Saltburn on Prime. What a great movie, holy cow. Barry Keoghan was fantastic. Funnily enough I watched Calm with Horses last night, another film with a great performance from Barry Keoghan, well worth a watch if you haven't seen it. Grimey and brutal film with amazing performances from everyone in it.
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Jan 1, 2024 21:05
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The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004) My last film of 2023 was Scorsese's new-to-me After Hours, so for my first film of 2024 I followed it up with another new-to-me Scorsese. Another Scorsese classic, it's a sympathetic look at a troubled genius and one of those films where so many great actors show up, even if just for a brief scene (Willem Dafoe! Jude Law! the radio announcer from Killers of the Flower Moon!) or some (John C. Reilly! Adam Scott! Cate Blanchett!) who are airborne for the entire flight (aviation reference for those who have seen the film). Thelma Schoonmaker shows why she's one of the best, as the tight editing on this made the 2 hours 50 runtime fly by, and there's some gripping flight scenes, even if not all of the integration of practical effects and CGI holds up.
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Jan 1, 2024 22:50
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Aviator was originally going to be directed by Micheal Mann and it shows, it has all the hallmarks of his inclinations. Obsession with obsession, the inability to reconcile the professional and the personal, genius being destroyed by its own greatness. He ended up passing because he felt it was too similar to Ali, another movie about a great man's life, and instead went on to do Collateral after becoming fascinated with the idea of a temporal crucible, time compressed to the extreme and how that pressure could explode out drastically altering the course of ones life. Those two tendencies are finally perfectly united in Ferrari where an obsessed geniuses life and ethos are boiled down into just tens of hours that will make or break him completely
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Jan 1, 2024 23:37
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Casablanca - I'd seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never in full. It has so many seminal lines that I've heard referenced in a thousand things that I'd felt like I'd watched it already. Hot take: it's a good movie. The Marseillaise scene was so powerful and well constructed, capped off with Madeline Lebeau's agonised cry at the end.
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Jan 2, 2024 00:27
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Watched Chungking Express. Fantastic movie. Didn't know the structure of it going in so was confused at first but by the end it all clicked and I was just hooting with how fun and honest it is. So many great shots and scenes. The ending where Faye becomes a flight attendant and comes back by way of California was perfect.
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Jan 2, 2024 04:55
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i rewatched holdovers again for the first time since seeing it in the theater over last night and this afternoon god drat that ending actually packs more of a punch than i remember. made me cry again in the best way.
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Jan 2, 2024 08:03
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Beau Travail I was a little uncertain going into this having seen a couple of word salad reviews, but it's utterly enthralling. Gorgeous cinematography and choreography of men moving together. It really worked for me as a story told almost entirely through atmosphere and images, and I'm not sure you even could successfully describe the actual content other than by playing the film and pointing at it..jpg)
distortion park fucked around with this message at 10:16 on Jan 2, 2024 |
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Jan 2, 2024 10:13
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my bony fealty posted:Watched Chungking Express. Fantastic movie. Didn't know the structure of it going in so was confused at first but by the end it all clicked and I was just hooting with how fun and honest it is. So many great shots and scenes. The ending where Faye becomes a flight attendant and comes back by way of California was perfect. Threw this on the other day in the background. It's incredible what a work it is. The House of Yes What a way to start off the new year of film watching. I remember a lad going off on some long nonsense tangent about how 9/11 broke America's brain and ever since then it's been a hollow shell trying to regain it's sense of sécurité and sanity; it is the folly of youth that they expect the events that they witness or are preceded immediately by are the greatest of all human history and that the following are mere shadows. History doesn't work that way, pick up a copy of Don DeLillo's Libra to consider how people in their own respective age viewed and were quote unquote brain broken by the assassination of the president; extrapolate that unto every country and time period and you'll begin to move beyond the juvenile sense of historicity. Regardless, the film is excellent. I shouldn't need to say that Posey is bringing her own brand of heightened deadpan and emotive brilliance to the role of a traumatized Jackie O stand in. Or that the complicated tale of affluential incest, psychosis and abuse is worthy of putting in the halls of great films. Few films are as complicated in their portrayal of such things, and when they are they are either too obvious or to obsequious. The flaws of the family are in full display but it doesn't let anyone get away unscathed easily. The flaws are in the performances. Posey as mentioned and will be mentioned again, is excellent as the main character. And Parker Posey is excellent as the main character. Josh Hamilton, whom I believe already worked with her on Kicking and Screaming, just doesn't do it for me, the lad cannot convince me of his upbringing or his new found desire to escape his In all I'm rating it 4/5 with a .5 being very near, but I can see how one could easily fail to rate it differently given how weak most of the cast is compared to the material. Interesting that the director made this and then nothing but schlock aside from Mean Girls which is schlock but elevated; personally if I made a movie like this and then fell to making poo poo like the Ghost's of Girlfriends Past and a movie with Tik Tok stars and Zabka's son from Cobra Kai I would be incredibly embarrassed. Few films have the power to knock books to the top of the reading list though, and this moved two. Libra by DeLillo and Ada by Nabokov are both moving to the top of the reread list now. Ada especially.
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Jan 2, 2024 14:05
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Rebel Moon - tbh I stopped paying attention half way through. Not sure how much of this was filmed on location but lots of the outdoor shots really looked like they were on soundstages, felt like Dr Who at times.
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Jan 2, 2024 21:48
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Anatomy of a fall Can a dog act? I dunno but if they can even the dog in this knocks it out the park. Every cast member gives a brilliant performance.
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Jan 2, 2024 22:04
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Castello Cavalcanti Wes Anderson A Wes Anderson short brought to my attention because it is a send up of the same disaster that Ferrari deals with. I don't think I need to say this but Anderson's take is much different than Mann's, for one the entire thing is about the racer who is recast as an American and is about him reconnecting with his ancestors after a tragic accident. A more precise and framed but less musical version of the music video for Lorn's Acid Rain. A fun watch for the whole seven minutes. Do you Like to Read? Wes Anderson A short about some of the books that Suzy Bishop is carrying around in Moonrise Kingdom. Bob Babalan's dead pan humor is a great way to get people into the universe and I think this while not necessary is a good prelude to the film. Trying to figure out what the books refrenced is also a fun game. We have Lion, Witch and Wardrobe with an Aslan who lacks confidence in himself. A fantastic planet knockoff. Something that seems to be a scientific Harry Potter. And then Jack and the Beanstalk but they're werewolf hunters? Not much substance but pretty funny What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Martin Scorsese The man is really wearing his Italian and French New Wave influences on his sleeve. There are a lot of different themes tackled here, obsession, catholic guilt, social alienation, the process of making art, but all of it is done in a very scattershot and juvenile way. I'm not gonna castigate him for it, but it's clear the man didn't really have a clue of what he was trying to say or how to clearly say it yet. It is a fun little film to watch though, and I believe this is his first collaboration with Schonmaker.
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Jan 3, 2024 09:45
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Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar: Ioved watching this show back in my college days so it was nice to see it get a true ending finally. It’s definitely overstuffed with plot and mythology for its 80 minute run time, but it’s understandable as this is the last chance. Still it was pretty fun and still had some good jokes, especially Dr. Rockso song. Plus some new metal songs! Overall it ends with a meta celebration and love to the fans which feels appropriate after all these years.
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Jan 3, 2024 17:34
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Black Crab Kinda weird sci-fi about a bunch of people sent to ice-skate across a frozen archipelago to deliver a package during a post-apocalyptic civil war, sort of like Sorcerer on ice. And with none of the style, stakes or tension, unfortunately. Suffers a lot from bullets practically drawing outlines round the main characters and the film sort of ending about 75% of the way in and the last act being a massive drag. A shame, because some aspects are really, really good. Worth a watch if you want to see a sci-fi thats a bit different but be prepared to stop most of the way through to go and do something else.
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Jan 3, 2024 20:11
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Hotel Chevalier Wes Anderson Honestly one of his better works. In fifteen minutes he gets across the sadness and inability to move on of the principle character, his hesitation to fall right back into the same mistakes when his former girlfriend shows up, and the all too human fallibility of not only making those mistakes by loving her, but also knowing all to well that you are going to do so despite full well knowing the consequences of that move. Clockwatchers Jill Sprecher People are going to call this the female Office Space when what it actually is is a low totem white collar version of Schrader's Blue Collar, while it's portrayal is admirable there are far more flaws in this film than there is in Schrader's work. For one Posey absolutely dominates the picture, Kudrow can sometimes keep step but Collette and the other woman absolutely cannot. It kind of fucks up the group dynamic that the early film has when Posey is far more interesting both in character and in acting than the rest of the people. Secondly, and adding to that is that the film loses a ton of excitement and heart the second she exits the picture. It is a great final scene for her, but it's also the last good scene of the film, the rest is aimless and boring, and not in a deliberate way like the rest of the film. It just doesn't know how to end so she keeps the camera rolling through every scenario until getting four or five endings worth of endings. It doesn't help that it's made abundantly clear that no matter what happens Toni Collette's character is going to be fine, she really is just watching all this horrible poo poo happen to her friends and co-workers and saying nothing because at the end of the day her dad is rich and she can find a job easily. There is some really interesting themes of friendship and monotony and the way capital can turn people against each other and ground one down, but the film never really manages to say anything that profound about it or fully come to grips with what it's subject matter is.
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Jan 4, 2024 13:31
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The Firm Entertaining nonsense with a peculiar jazzy soundtrack. I watched it in two chunks so the slightly exorbitant length didn’t bother me like it might’ve otherwise. It’s wild to go from Dead Reckoning—where Tom Cruise jumps a bike off a mountain, fights a guy on top of a speeding train, and then climbs through the train as it falls off a cliff—to this, where the action climax is Tom Cruise kicking an old and overweight Wilford Brimley as he lies motionless on the floor. Topsy Turvy Rewatch. I really gotta see more Mike Leigh films. This one is an absolute gem. There are so many stately and interchangeable period dramas that poor me to death, it’s such a treat when you find one—like Barry Lyndon or Phantom Thread—that has a pulse, that feels human and idiosyncratic and alive. I love how this film luxuriates in character moments and in the details of regrading and mounting a theatrical production. A number of scenes told entirely in one mid shot and it works beautifully because the rhythm is right and the writing and performances carry you through. A wonderfully made film—with one odd flaw, which is that I don’t think the central spine of it really works. The story is: Gilbert and Sullivan have made a number of very successful light operas, but a crisis emerges when Sullivan decides he wants to work on something more serious and rejects Gilbert’s latest libretto for another light opera. Things are looking bad until Gilbert comes up with an idea for a different new light opera, and Sullivan loves it immediately. They go into production, and Sullivan to a great extent just drops out of the story. Not enough is done imo to justify the Mikado being different from Gilbert’s previous efforts. Even he doesn’t seem to think it is. It’s funny that the centre of the film doesn’t quite come together, when all of the details are so good.
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Jan 4, 2024 13:36
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Finally saw Upgrade and it was loving dope. Easily the best comic book movie in years* (*not actually based on a comic book). Dug the combination of acting and camera work that made the lead's movements seem convincingly dissociative/robotic and not a single fight scene devolved into bright lights and lasers
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Jan 4, 2024 15:12
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Upgrade is so good.
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Jan 4, 2024 16:46
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