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I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Most recent first:
(Manchester By The Sea: 5/5
Collateral Beauty: 1/5) - I saw these both on new year's day
Orlando: 4.5/5
A Very Murray Christmas: 3/5
The Man From UNCLE: 4/5
Cosmopolis: 4/5
Hell Or High Water: 4.5/5
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: 5/5
Lethal Weapon (rewatch): 4/5
The Purge: 2/5
Suicide Squad Extended Edition: 2.5/5
The Nice Guys: 4.5/5
Everybody Wants Some!!: 4/5
Fateful Findings: 1/5
Rango(rewatch): 4/5
Quiz Show(rewatch): 3/5

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I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

York_M_Chan posted:

Quiz Show is one of my favorites. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Quiz Show was one of my favorites as a kid, I had it on VHS and along with Down With Love and The Wedding Singer it was on constant rotation. When I saw it was on Netflix, I decided to revisit it, seeing as I hadn't seen it in approximately a decade. There's a lot to love, Ralph Fiennes in particular plays his part with a sort of dry nonchalance that can come off as either apathy or innocence and creates a delightful ambiguity around his character, but for the most part it's kind of bland, skimming over thematic veins it could tap into like the ethnic resentment behind Herb's character and the idea that game show viewers aren't really interested in legitimate competition as much as they want choreographed drama. There's a scene where Herb is talking to his son and pro wrestling is on in the background, which is the closest they really get to exploring that idea of game shows as theatrically performed simulations of competition. To my surprise, the part that really didn't hold up was John Tuturro's performance as Herb. I'm not sure if it's Tuturro, the direction, or the script, but Herb really just comes off as spiteful in a one-dimensional way that isn't really entertaining or thematically interesting. Mack The Knife is still a great song, though, setting the mood for an examination of high class trappings hiding cruelty that the movie itself never really becomes.

Dol posted:

Could you expand of these? I'm particularly curious about The Man From UNCLE since I've never read much about it that was very positive, middling at best really from what I could gather.

Rango(rewatch): 4/5 - Maybe one of the prettiest animated movies I've ever seen, from the character designs to the way light and water are handled. What this reminded me of most was Blazing Saddles, but instead of everything including the characters being Western artifice in one compartment of a bigger Hollywood ecosystem, Rango himself is consciously affecting Western artifice to try to blend into a society that itself is moving from Western to Noir, leaving him one step behind at all times. This has its own equivalent to the bit in Blazing Saddles where things spill out of the Western soundstage and the artifice is laid bare, but this version is more respectful, portraying the Spirit Of The West as a dying titan, large yet still fading in his later years. This respect for Western artifice that still acknowledges the artificiality is kind of spoiled by the ending where Dirt just becomes a modern beach town. I mean, I get it, it's gone from Tombstone to Venice Beach, but it's still kind of lame.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: 5/5
The Nice Guys: 4.5/5
- These two use the same core dynamic, where a scrawny wiseass in over his head is paired with a gruffer, more experienced character, but where I found Ryan Gosling's Holland March to be the more interesting half in The Nice Guys, Val Kilmer as Gay Perry really stole the show in KKBB. The plots in both are mainly there as clotheshorses for the character interactions, but in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang there's a thematic thread of people being disappointed by the intersection of fantasy with reality and The Nice Guys doesn't do quite as much with its government corruption narrative. It's more than a little heartbreaking to see Shane Black try twice to really bring classic buddy cop comedy back, with both attempts resulting in great, fun movies, and have both underperform at the box office.

The Man From UNCLE: 4/5
Hell Or High Water: 4.5/5
- One of the most powerful scenes in Hell Or High Water is the scene at the blackjack table, where Tanner and an old Comanche man have a conversation about what "Comanche" means, that being "enemies forever". Tanner replies: "You know what that makes me? ... A Comanche." It's one of the many scenes where men butt heads, but nothing big actually comes of it, all talk and no action. This is a theme that cuts across the cop/criminal divide, with Jeff Bridges' Marcus being just as antagonistic towards his partner, Alberto(Gil Birmingham), even as Alberto dispassionately shrugs off his barbs. These confrontations are an attempt to create some sort of feeling of individual power in a segment of society where poverty is a constant. From Kaleb Horton's review:

quote:

It was a popular pastime to joke about robbing the tiny little bank. You cross the train tracks, you sprint down the old road, you’re in there about 10 minutes, you take the small bills in the register but not the ink packs, you run like hell, you wash the money in another state. But we stopped joking when somebody actually did it. This kid went in, pretended to have a gun, and 20 minutes later he was sitting in his trailer. But he only had $5,000 to show for it, not even enough for a car you don’t have to fix on weekends, and he was on too much meth to get away with it, so he was really just renting the money.

While this was an indefensible crime — you’re not supposed to actually rob the bank, you’re just supposed to talk about it forever — following the story was demoralizing. Forces unknown had taken away our economy and industry and simple lifestyle and to top it all off, drat it, we can’t even get by on robbing banks.

Even the cops feel powerless. Tanner kills Marcus' partner, but Marcus is unable to get closure just by killing Tanner in kind. He sees how Toby is the man who put the bank robbery plot in motion, and that his image of justice hasn't been done, but he can't see what put Toby in motion, the systemic problems that frame the entire conflict, and that his version of justice is woefully unprepared for the situation. He's a cowboy whose prarie is burning. In Man From Uncle, the clock is 50 years behind, but the masculine ego-sniping and the sense of powerlessness is still there. Despite the fact that Napoleon and Illya are ostensibly incredibly powerful, they are the cowboys that Marcus imagines himself to be, they're still made powerless by the systems that contain them, the grand game of geopolitics. It's played more for laughs than for tragedy here, with Cavill's smarmy Timothy Dalton-esque charm bouncing off Hammer's gruff stoicism, but they're allowed to see what Marcus doesn't. Napoleon is able to respect Illya and see past their national divide, showing him a human kindness by returning his father's watch. In kind, Illya finally realizes that what he may lose in allowing himself to be vulnerable he makes up for in genuine emotional connection. This is what finally allows them to put their larger conflict aside, destroying the item(I think it might have been microfilm, but does it really matter?) both countries wanted and putting friendship above national loyalty. I can kind of see why people might have disliked Man From Uncle, as it's not even the first revival of a show from decades ago nobody cares about anymore to star Armie Hammer, but Guy Ritchie's eye for flashy action (I mean god drat there's an action montage presented entirely in Brian DePalma-style splitscreens that blew my mind), ability to direct actors (I think this is the first interesting performance I've seen from either Hammer or Cavill), and dedication to 60s fashion turns what could have been another Starsky and Hutch into an underlooked gem that's retro without being a half-baked pastiche. Also it's maybe the only buddy cop movie I've seen where the petty sniping takes the form of both men aggressively demonstrating their knowledge of women's fashion, and that's beautiful.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Most recent first:

Bye Bye Man : 3/5
Fences: 4/5
Comic Book Confidential: 3.5/5
Rogue One: 4.5/5
Underworld: Blood Wars: 2.5/5
American Ultra: 1/5

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

Bronson - 74/100
Manchester by the Sea - 82/100
Moonlight - 90/100

Expand on these if you would

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:


Manchester by the Sea - 82/100

One of the better films this year. MbtS is just as formal and deliberate as Margaret was years ago, and both films feel like they could be stage plays given the director's history. Honestly, I saw this back to back with Moonlight and it really suffered due to the juxtaposition. Manchester is a clean, politely shot, well acted film, but it felt incredibly stuffy to me, so focused on the mundane and trivial, and both the cinematography and score really reflect an aversion to risktaking. I must admit that Affleck gives an astounding performance, one that manages to disguise some of the more mediocre elements of the film.

I have to say I disagree. I found it to be viscerally affecting because of that focus on the trivial and everyday. It takes these moments that at first glance are mundane and shows how even those little moments have the process of grief weighing on them. There's this maelstrom of emotion boiling under the surface of both Lee and Patrick, and the audience is put outside them, mostly unable to see through the facade of calmness and normalcy they put up until it cracks, until Lee explodes into impulive self destruction like in the bar scenes or when he punches through the window or when Patrick has that panic attack at the freezer, and the cinematography you describe as unambitious is a part of that, presenting these characters in a very matter of fact way, as well as reinforcing the tedium of waiting until winter for the ground to soften. I agree that it doesn't really pull out a lot of neat tricks, but it's not going for the sort of impressionistic camera work Moonlight is, and I think both approaches are appropriate for their contexts.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

Yeah, I got all that out of it, and agree. I guess I'd say that the way it was structured, filmed and scored would not be something I'd likely watch again, even though I felt it worked pretty well to convey the point. So I docked it for that.

Fair enough.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

York_M_Chan posted:

Tampopo (7/10)
Suicide Squad (4/10)

If you would.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

York_M_Chan posted:

Unfortunately this isn't the Rate The Latest Breastfeeding Sequence You've Seen thread. Whatever happened to that thread, btw?

They milked the premise for all it was worth.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

got any sevens posted:

I really appreciate the understated world building of The John Wickverse, even civilians don't freak out when people are bleeding out next to them.

also liked the homages to the paranoia of the matrix red dress scene and mirrors from Enter the Dragon.

The final scene with Ian McShane is the perfect cap on the theme the whole movie has been building towards: this is no secret society, it's just society. This is how this world operates, an ancap nightmare of commerce and contract, and excommunication makes Wick a pariah not just to the assassins, but to all humanity. His soul, his humanity is forfeit, and he is now just a wounded dog like he was at the end of the original. Also it's dope that a Hollywood blockbuster is this indebted to Tokyo Drifter. Maybe the next one will be more Branded To Kill.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:

The Edge of Seventeen (2016) dir. Kelly Fremon Craig 7.5/10
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) dir. Lynne Ramsay 8/10

If you would.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

Fences - 84/100
Toni Erdmann - 81/100

Please go into further detail.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Most recent first:
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace (2011): 4/5
Quadrophenia (1978): 4.5/5
A Cure For Wellness (2017): 4/5
Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster (2004): 3/5
Paul's Case (1980): 4/5
Paris Is Burning (1990): 5/5
John Wick Chapter 2 (2017): 4.5/5
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2004): 4/5 (rewatch)
The Master (2012): 5/5 (rewatch)
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992): 4.5/5
The Exterminating Angel (1962): 4/5
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story Of The National Lampoon (2015): 2.5/5
Trainspotting (1996): 4/5
Little Sister (2016): 3.5/5
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2007): 2/5
Macgruber (2010): 4.5/5
The Nightmare (2015): 0.5/5

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

glam rock hamhock posted:

These if you will

I probably wasn't in the right mood for The Nightmare, but I just could not bear how chintzy the effects were and how dull the actual dreams were.

With regard to Paris Is Burning, I'm not sure there's anything left to say. What particularly stood out to me is how these families provide a structure and love for people in situations where that's sorely missing, where they're estranged at best from their biological families, and this could so easily have been dismissed as unseemly or shown as a sideshow to gawp at, but it isn't.

Dol posted:

These please.

I'll try to get to these tonight, I've been busy lately.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

GIGA-Reagan posted:

Drive - 1/10

Probably the most overrated pretentious garbage movie I've ever seen. It starts out so promising but after that first three minutes, watching the two love interests look at each other like a pair of autistic peasants makes me feel like anyone recommending this movie is trolling. The plot makes no sense, huge waste of any talent that entered the movie, and I would honestly rather watch all 4 Transformers movies in a row then let even one minute of this drivel touch my screen again. I give it a 1 because I kinda do like that Human Bean song, and it was pretty. I will punch that rear end-hat Refn in his stupid face if i ever see him in real life because of this poo poo, however.

I don't remember anyone in Drive farming in medieval Europe

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Clouds of Sils Maria - 86/100

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

Personal Shopper - 69/100
Mulholland Drive (rewatch) - 92/100

Nice, also I'd like to hear more

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

TychoCelchuuu posted:

I think Kristen Stewart is a great actor, even though she looks like she's always about to fall asleep, and Juliette Binoche is always amazing, so a movie that's basically just the two of them talking is always going to be a winner in my eyes. This brings even more to the table, though. It gets a little bit meta every once in a while, but even better than that stuff are the parts where there's a bit of slippage/confusion between what's going on the the play Binoche is rehearsing and what's going on between her and Stewart. You can tell the characters know, because they know the lines and the play, but we don't, and in any case the two are blurring together enough that in some ways it's sort of a moot point whether the particular words they're saying are from a script or not, because it's all about what's going on in the performance at the moment. There are some standout scenes, like the conversation in the casino where Binoche is excellent, and I love the end of the second part of the movie (right before the epilogue).

God I love the bar scene.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

St. Valentine's Day Massacre is really really great.

My favorite part was when Paul Wight threw Austin into the cage wall and it busted causing Austin to win the match

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Ratings out of 100.

Silence (2016) - 83
Paterson (2016) - 89
The Love Witch (2016) - 93

La La Land (2016) - 82
Manchester by the Sea (2016) - 87

If you would

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:

1776 (Mr. Feeny as John Adams?!): A

Always love to hear people's takes on 1776.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:

Sure!

I watched 1776 on TCM last night, and I have to admit that it inspired me in a way that the 'rah rah' patriotism of A Capitol Fourth did not. For all these men knew, they were signing their names to their death warrants. The Continental Army was a small force of undertrained and underdisciplined men facing what was, at the time, one of the most powerful empires on Earth. And yet despite those long odds, and the very real possibility of being hanged for treason, they had the courage to see "independency" through to the end.

I'm not a historian, so I'm not sure about the historicity of all the things that were depicted in the movie, but I was impressed with the eye for detail. This movie had the balls to tackle several issues head on (for instance, the issue of slavery) without prettying it up for posterity. It's so easy to view the founding fathers as larger than life, but this movie didn't really do that. It depicted them as brave men, to be sure, but men with blind spots and character flaws. One song mentions how much John Adams was "obnoxious and disliked" several times. Franklin is depicted as a fairly horny old man, which was both amusing and correct. Even Jefferson, one of the greats of the Continental Congress, was shown as being reluctant about writing the Declaration - even refusing outright to do it, because he wanted to take his wife to bed.

Seeing the founders have the courage, even in the face of what seemed like certain death, to openly defy King George gave me courage to defy King Donald I and never stop fighting for what's right.

And, of course, it was cool seeing Mr. Feeny as Adams.

See, I love it too but I take a very different read, where it's a dark comedy about how for all Adams' bluster the US is born out of compromising on the greatest atrocity in our nation's history which every single person in that room is complicit in, if not for the sale of slaves ("they don't see them as figures on a ledger, no, they see them as figures on a block!") then for all the rum they buy, and the cowardice of a man who just doesn't want to change history.

"The eagle is a scavenger, a thief, and a coward."

I like your read too, though.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

First watched first, out of 5, rewatches italicized
The Love Witch 4
The Lobster 4.5
Ghost World 4
Gone Girl 4
GLOW: The Story Of The Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling 4
The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared 2.5
I Am Not Your Negro 3
1776 5
Creed 4
Wise Blood 3
How To Steal A Million 3.5
My Cousin Vinny 3.5
48 Hours 4

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012


The Love Witch - 4 - I watched this with my mom, and throughout the whole thing she kept trying to guess Biller's intentions, at one point advancing the theory that it was meant as some sort of witch propaganda, so if you can watch with someone like that, do so. The 60s vibe is pitch perfect, especially the fashion, and that would be an achievement on its own, but the story hit a balance between being goofy and showing us the actual emotion behind her doomed search for love that kept it from becoming either too insubstantial or too leaden and serious.

How To Steal A Million - 3.5 - There's a lot to like here, especially the chemistry between O'Toole and Hepburn, but outside the centerpiece heist itself it's very slight, and watching Hepburn and O'Toole interact with Eli Wallach isn't nearly as interesting as when they play off each other.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012


Cybersex

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

First watched first, out of five
4 Lions: 5
Manhattan: 4
Tour De Pharmacy: 3
Satantango: 4 (watched in 3 sittings over ~4 days)
All That Jazz: 5 (100th film I've seen this year)
Popstar: 3.5
The Love Punch: 3
Martin: 4
Appaloosa: 2
10 Cloverfield Lane: 2.5
Nine Lives: 4

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

coyo7e posted:

Checkpoint (2017): 3/10

This movie is just gloriously awful on so many levels that it transcends and is great fun to watch. I mean they couldn't even write a summary that talks about what happens - the vet and the cop are never teamed up, and the sheriff never investigates anything unlike the teaser blurbs on both imdb and netflix.. I suspect the entire thing was written by a pro wrestler because there are so many plot holes and "wait, why did they do that?" moments, it even has a totally gratuitous scene where a dude throws himself on the only grenade in the entire movie (meanwhile in the same battle a black man fires a disposable LAW rocket launcher four or five times for no particular reason, and a little girl convinces the military to effectively invade a small farm in a small town on the eastern seaboard.)


Trailer:
https://g.co/kgs/jXbrst

Uh pal, pro wrestlers are trained to create clear comprehensible narratives with violence.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Phantom Of The Paradise (rewatch): 5/5
Crimes Of Passion: 4/5
The Squid And The Whale: 3/5

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:

License To Kill (1989, Rewatch): A
I don't understand why people don't like this movie. It's one of my favorites, and I favor Dalton's interpretation of Bond.

It's so mean and that can be alienating to Bond audiences, but it's fantastic.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Bottom Liner posted:

Mother what the hell/5

Aronofsky at his most Aronofsky. Symbolism was too on the nose for my liking. His weakest film other than Noah, which was trash. Jlaw and Javier killed though.

IMO the whirlwind pace and intensity made up for the lack of subtlety.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

Yeah, agreed. I think it's his best film by a country mile, but I'm not a superfan of his.

Agreed, I like The Wrestler and Black Swan, and Mother is phenomenal, but the rest of his stuff never really connected with me.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

I feel confident saying that Mother! has some of the most atheistic (and frankly audacious) religious allegory I've come across in film.

I wouldn't call it atheistic, more Deistic or anti-theistic. Bardem, the I Am, is alternately indifferent to Lawrence's pain and unable/unwilling to act or actively hostile to her while excusing his cruelty with platitudes about pain being necessary for creation. In this theology, it's not that God doesn't exist, it's that his values are abhorrent.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Marvel movies, like all films, are a land of contrasts.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Bottom Liner posted:

Wonder Woman is a good but not great super hero film that stands out among it's contemporaries for being the first female led super hero film and being the first good DC film. It has a lot of issues though and doesn't hold up well on repeat viewings. I'd put it as a firm 3/5.

I think you're forgetting a little film called Tank Girl

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Outta 100:

The Boss Baby (2017) - 70

Now this is intriguing

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Egbert Souse posted:

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017, Matt Reeves) [Blu-ray] - 4/5
The Shape of Water (2017, Guillermo del Toro) [theatrical] - 4.5/5

Please.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:


Mame (1974): C
Weird movie. Lucy croaks out the musical numbers like a 2+ packs a day smoker (which she probably was).

But how good is she at Q-Bert?

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

got any sevens posted:

Howard the Duck - better than I remember, it's in the top five of marvel movies, with iron man 3, Blade, cap murica 1, and Hulk. Great campy humor. The biggest issue is too much telling instead of showing, but a fair bit of that is intentional as part of a joke, like when the alien is monologuing about destroying earth while howard dgaf and is having a movie pie fight.

Have you seen Punisher War Zone?

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

FeastForCows posted:

Watched Highlander for the first time just now, and it's...something. Not really sure why it's regarded as a cult classic. Lambert is laughably bad (and his laugh is bad), there's too many flashbacks, the supporting characters are bad (with the exception of Connery maybe), run-time is way too long and there's too many scenes that reminded me I'd rather be watching Terminator. The only saving grace is the soundtrack.

4/10.

Edit: I just remembered, I absolutely loved some of the shots, especially that long crane shot at the beginning of the wrestling match. Looked fantastic.

Clancy Brown rules though

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

the_tasman_series posted:

Singin' in the Rain: 4.5/5
Only God Forgives: 2.5/5
Children of Men: 3/5

Please, speak further

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

To be fair, Jackass 2 rules

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I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

umalt posted:

Millennials believe [...] Cops are adversarial to the public and protect institutions over people, and that Corporations are inherently parasitic in nature where "bad eggs" are rewarded.

literally the subsequent paragraph posted:

Millenials can't enjoy RoboCop because RoboCop assumes a certain outlook on America that millennials can't possibly relate to.

As a millennial who loves RoboCop, what version of RoboCop did you watch

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