|
I just watched Playtime and don't hey the love. It was so slow for the first 40 minutes, the back half really picked up and was pretty good, but man it's too long for what it delivers and just didn't resonate with me. I'm curious to hear what people love about it it what makes it so revered.
|
#
¿
May 7, 2022 06:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 08:20 |
|
|
The Conversation was good, but I expected it to be better given the way people talk about it. Also funny that he shows a few ways of surveilling without needing a microphone in the room, yet tears up his apartment looking for something that might not even be there.
|
|
#
¿
May 16, 2022 07:45
|
|
|
Just saw The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and it was pretty amazing. The story is pretty slight, but it packs a huge wallop. I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I'm finding myself doing, and really don't know why it hasn't been more a part of the film critics that I follow.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2022 05:40
|
|
|
They both also feel like the ur example of do many movies too. You watch those and I feel you understand a hundred other movies referencing or cribbing from them.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2022 06:43
|
|
|
Man Police Story makes no sense as a story but the action is fun as hell. I love that they showed the big mall stunt 3 times from different angles!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2022 20:58
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Conversation Hackman playing against type and he nailed it. His character is such an awkward poorly socialized paranoid individual it's hard to imagine the same man played Popeye Doyle. Even in Night Moves where he's playing in a similar space, he comes off as this masculine powerful force who might gently caress up but is also a force of change who can impact his environment. In this film he's far more competent, but utterly impotent. He manages to impact nothing in the plot except losing his only friends and his girlfriend. He doesn't prevent the murder, he doesn't even call the police. He sits in a room and just listens. To me that was really driven home when he lets the party into his fenced off recording room! He's one of the best at the technical aspect, building the recording for what 3-4 different mics, and then he's there, giving the game away to the only other people who'd be interested or care about what he's heard. It's fascinating, and one I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did. Plus seeing the offices at Embarcadero Center in SF is just great.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2022 09:09
|
|
|
Is Double Indemnity the perfect movie? It certainly seems that way having just finished watching it. It sets so many noir tropes, but even today when a lot of that has been so imitated still feels pretty fresh. I expected to like it but was surprised how much I actually did!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2022 18:44
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:No, the wig is awful I know that's the consensus, but I didn't really hate or notice it as something that drew me out of the film.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2022 00:38
|
|
|
Three Colors: White: Uhh, what the hell did I just watch? This movie is very gripping to watch, and pretty intense, but makes little sense? The plot sorta whips you around, but I still felt it had an emotional core? We just watched Blue the night before and I'm really curious to see Red to see how these are even a trilogy.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2022 05:07
|
|
|
Mantis42 posted:Oh man, from what I remember Red is the best one. Haven't seen them since I was a teen though, don't remember them super well. Red was definitely my favorite having just finished it! Well I really liked Blue too, so might have to think more on that, but Red was superb. I knew Irene Jacob from U.S. Marshalls of all movies, so was nice to actually see her have a real, important role.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2022 02:32
|
|
|
My partner loves the Before trilogy so much she looked for similar films and that's how I've seen a bunch of Rohmer films recently!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2022 01:06
|
|
|
mycophobia posted:Before trilogy are some of my favorite films Thousand dollar question, which is your favorite?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2022 06:36
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:Three Colors Blue Not sure given your reaction if you're considering White and Red, but I'd definitely be curious to hear what you think of them if you do go for it. Personally, I felt there was a lot of heavyhandedness in the movie, from the cutting to blue, the score swelling so dramatically, her running away, etc. But funnily enough that really worked for the story. Grief is heavyhanded and can be paradoxical, and this captured that really well for me. It felt obvious, but super truthful if that makes sense.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2022 01:18
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:Yeah in retrospect the swelling score really works to show just how overwhelming even simple things could be for someone under so much grief. To us a man playing a snippet on flute is at most annoying, but to Juliette's character it's this all consuming cacophony that drowns out her thoughts and reason. My partner was super against the idea about Dominique ever finding Karol attractive, essentially saying that she says she's attracted to K, but we're given no evidence or support for that. My explanation was similar to yours, in that him in Polish was super different to him in French, and that I think there's enough there to support it. That said, the movie does require you as the view to do a whole bunch of extrapolation. The revenge plot in particular was a whole bunch of telling you that they fixed the murder on her and trusting you to believe it. There are so many extremes too, like you go from Dominique making him homeless to him trying to gently caress her, to her setting their place on fire to pin the arson on him. Then it's oh we're back and she's crying so that means that she loves him and they have sex, to oh he's gone and now she's in prison for his murder. This more than the others felt like it was about the fall of the soviet union and the characters were agents of national change. I do think Karol's brother is pretty great in this, both the character and the actor are always a joy to see on this screen. To me the whole thing felt less emotional and more tactical, rather than revealing deeper truths, everyone felt in service of the plot and a message. I wish they'd developed Dominique.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2022 09:09
|
|
|
Columbus is just amazing. I can't really put into words how much I love the stationary camera that only moves twice (that I caught) when it's important to the two main characters. It means something and I love it. It helps that the movie is so goddamn gorgeous. Like it's stunning, my partner called some of the shots as perfect postcards and she's not wrong. The performances are also amazing, I mean the glory of the shooting could easily be overtaken by a neglect of the characters or how they're portrayed. Haley Lu Richardson is luminous. She's strong and fragile and emotive. You get such a wonderful sense of her loving Columbus, but also wanting so much to experience the rest of the world that her classmates seem to be. She loves this place but wants to outgrow it, but can't yet. Her sense of responsibility for her mother is both understandable and yet so frustrating. It's very much like Lady Birdy, where I don't think the movie realizes how codependent their mother/daughter relationship actually is. The only negative thing I would say is that she comes across like she doesn't actually smoke. It's a small thing, but the cigarette placement and approach just came across false. John Cho is also just amazing here. I love his weary affect, and how much you can tell he doesn't want to be there. I don't know how I feel about the ending where he moves into his father's hospital room. It feels very much set up like the similar Korean set up he's avoiding, where he succumbs to outside pressure and mourns the way society wants him to, rather than how he actually feels. I'm a bit back and forth if we're meant to feel the movie celebrating that as a right decision, or if it's a mirror to say Cassandra is making the right choice, leaving Jin trapped in her place, almost the sacrifice that lets her leave. Just overall a stunning movie, and one that is so humanistic. I love how it's shot and how it takes buildings and builds into that the story.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2022 08:15
|
|
|
So I just watched Hiroshima Mon Amour and like wtf. My partner came in and asked what I thought after it ended and I blurted out it might be the best movie I've ever seen? And I think that's not true . . . but it feels true right now, 30 minutes after it's finished? Like wtf, that's amazing, and just stunning. I have seen so many movies imitate what this does, and fail. It's turned me over to see this work, and really call into question just everything. IDK, I'm not really sure yet how to put this into words. It leaves you feeling empty and full at the same time, both despairing and joyous, and fully prickly. I have seen so many things like it, but nothing ever like it. Just wow.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 1, 2022 07:04
|
|
|
Just saw Touch of Evil and it's really good? It's a little nuts with Dutch angles, but I feel like they almost all work? The opening is breathtaking of course, but there are amazing pieces of camera work throughout. I audibly gasped on the camera dollyout when Quinlan is making the deal with Grandi. The ending with the bug is a bit slow and I'm not sure works as well as I'd like. Janet Leigh is amazing though, this movie is full of just some top notch performances. Sorta shocked too that there's a movie in the 50's actually showing the cops as corrupt fuckers doing their job, not even taking bribes or whatever. That corruption is the lifeblood that makes police work possible. It does softwalk it back with the kid 'confessing' and actually being guilty, which I didn't love.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2022 20:03
|
|
|
checkplease posted:Touch of Evil is indeed great. Great actors and cool to see all of the old cities as a lot is filled on locations. Which version did you watch? I think the kid being guilty works as reinforces the idea that the police don’t need to be corrupt and plant evidence to since crimes. They just have to investigate actually. It’s trusting in the actual process, though that had its own problems of course. I'm not exactly sure, the one on criterion channel which is 1h35m. I think that's the original? Is the other version much different? I will say I viewed it as undermining the message, that he was right all along, and there's even commentary to that effect. It reinforces the notion that the cops never frame anyone who isn't guilty, which is reinforced by the dialogue at the end where they praise Quinlan's instincts.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2022 22:56
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:Frances Ha an entire film about people who unironically use the term "Adulting". Atrocious I hear you but I very much read that as a criticism of the system rather than an endorsement of the New Yorker class. I guess it helps that I'm reading Frances as striving but never achieving, essentially required for her rich friends to feel at her level, before taking advantage of their connections to rocket themselves forward, leaving her behind. She uses it because those with power do. Certified Copy: What an amazing film. At one point I asked well are they or aren't they (not quite like that) and realized the movie had already given us the answer that it doesn't matter, and that it works as a piece of art regardless. I've heard from my partner that if I loved this, which I do, that I absolutely need to check out the Koker trilogy, so expect that potentially.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2022 08:23
|
|
|
Rush Hour: I mean what's to say? It's pretty great, and unlike a lot of similar movies I feel most of the instances of racism are immediately undermined. Think Chris Tucker freaking out about the eel and camel hump, the trying to order it. It's not perfect, and I can't fault anyone for not enjoying the movie, but I think as a buddy cop movie it's awesome.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 19, 2022 10:56
|
|
|
See How They Run: It was fine? Too clever for itself I think, not funny enough to pull off the death of the Butler as a farce, but also not interested enough in its murder mystery. Great call outs though and fun pieces and performances that almost work, but not quite.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 29, 2022 03:29
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Long Goodbye Man, I watched MASH in school and liked it well enough. This movie though, Jesus, it's abysmal. I see Chandler I expect Hardboilded and Noir. Altman gave me some mumblecore bullshit, where a man sleepwalks around a plot that almost totally fails to involve him. Shoutout to Gould for making drat near every word he says incomprehensible, Hayden for managing to disabuse me of any notion I had of him being a good actor after my recent viewing of The Killing, and to the gangster who managed to feel less threatening than the Polanski cameo in Chinatown. Arnie taking off his shirt was the tiny fleck of gold in an ocean of excrement that Mr.Altman delivered straight into my eyeholes. He seems like the kind of smug dipshit who would take pleasure in subverting my expectations for what the film would be, good job sir, shame you couldn't also make a film that isn't a rancid waste of time. Also the movie looks like rear end, colors are washed out to gently caress. How you shoot on film and make it look like something shot on tape? Perhaps only the cinematic genius of Altman knows. Oh man, I love the Long Goodbye, it even comes up sometimes when I have to give a list of my favorite films. Not trying to argue you out of your position or anything, but to me I find a lot of classic noir/hardboiled films have the plot going on around the detective and them only thinking they're involved. To a certain degree I think The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, Farewell, My Lovely even something like The Blue Dahlia, all have plots that around going on around the primary character that they only sometimes intersect with. It doesn't seem to me then all that out of place, and helps construct the narrative around how someone who starts by saying "it's ok by me" ends up shooting his old friend in Mexico in cold blood.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2022 07:52
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:I was thinking about this in relation to Chinatown given how close a contemporary it is to Long Goodbye, and despite it also having the same sort of man on the outside trying to look in, what it does differently is use that to commentate on the nature of our society. Gittes always thinks he's a step ahead, is always two steps behind, and by the time he realizes that he's also forced to realize that it wouldn't matter if he had been ahead. Long Goodbye if it has a commentary at all is about how we should distrust our friends? or that society has degraded so much since the Marlownian times of yore that nobody is to be trusted? I don't even understand what the movie is trying to impress upon me. That said it is quite the unfair criticism given how most Noir plots go. I think it's in part about the alienation of values from more traditional film noir. In a lot of ways the plot if very similar to the Chandler novel, and Marlowe's taking a beating and a stint in jail for a friend is part of that ethos. Think Spade sleeping with his partner's wife and not liking the guy, but making statements about how that bond meant something, and he owes it to Archer to avenge him in The Maltese Falcon for instance. At it's core there's a commentary on Marlowe as the sucker, and these vaunted values of Hollywood end up protecting and supporting a shitbag of a human being who abused and then murdered his wife. Essentially here's what that outdated attitude gets you in the modern world. It's not to me a commentary on distrust our friends, but pick better friends in the first place. Gittes is about corruption in society and the rich winning, here I think The Long Goodbye is more personal and internalized, that a man so apart from society is naive.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2022 02:27
|
|
|
Call Northside 777: Pretty good, interesting use of the style as a movie that apes a documentary in a lot of way. Is this the first use of Enhance! CSI style in a movie? Also Stewart's character starts out waaaayy too gullible about the police being awesome. Helen Walker who plays his wife in the movie is pretty great though, she doesn't have a ton to do but really shines and brings through when she's on screen.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2022 07:11
|
|
|
It's funny, I follow a lot of film folks and they love Spielberg, but I find a lot of his stuff so obvious. I've been weighing whether the Fablemans will be worth checking out before the end of the year, but yeah that's sorta what I was worried about.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2022 05:57
|
|
|
After Yang: Man I really love Kogonada. There's a little more movement in the camera in this than say Columbus, but not a ton, and when it does occur it's not showy. The scenes are just so beautifully framed. The acting is quite good too, people have been praising Colin Farrell, and rightly so, but I was really struck by Jodie Turner-Smith and Justin Kim. Just great all around.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2022 05:58
|
|
|
Doing a mini-movie festival here at our house. Started yesterday with: Anatomy of a Murder: Really great, reminded me a bit of Witness for the Prosecution. Jimmy Stewart was great, and I loved the cinematography. Surprisingly not as dated as I was expecting. Still gross comments about this woman who was allegedly just raped, but I at least got the sense the movie was trying to cast those comments in a poor light. The Shop Around the Corner: I mean the better version of You've Got Mail hands down. For one being so enmeshed in each others lives as coworkers brings so much more to the experience. And their fellow worked add a lot through their own interactions. Great acting and writing, so much characterization gets developed just from Stewart's character describing dinner at the bosses house the night before. If there was any false not it was just at the end when Stewart's character really rubs it in how terrible her supposed beau is, but even that isn't too bad. Today we did: Aftersun: I mean pretty amazing. Paul Mescal really, really kills it. He's so physically present, but also just a huge range of emotions that play on his face. I admit to my own denseness that if I hadn't read so much about how the movie was about his own depression and how she inherited it from him, I might have missed it until the end. He comes across so much as the loving and caring father that it was only that I was reading into it what others had said was there that it came through. Without such spoilers I may have felt it more about nostalgia, the passage of youth and time, and how we form memories of parents who aren't perfect, but are certainly doing their best. I did feel there was some indication he was gay or at least not entirely straight, but the movie doesn't dive into that explicitly. Decision to Leave: Just amazing! Like 4 movies in 1, there are a number of tone shifts that maybe shouldn't work but do for me. I love use of food for telling you about the characters, but also their relations to and thoughts of others. Very frantic, there's not a lot of deadspace, which really does leave if feeling fully stuffed. Maybe a touch too much melodrama in the ending, it hits, but then keeps going past the point of effectiveness, and perhaps blunts what otherwise was a pretty chilling, but darkly hilarious film. Tar: So much to like, but I feel like it misses pretty badly. Cate Blanchett I thought acted pretty amazingly, but the movie itself really focuses on everything but the things that condemns here. I understand subtext, but look at The Assisstant. Obviously a different movie, but one that uses a broad tool case to show not tell. Most things this movie shows aren't of her being a monster or a predator, there are a few hints, but it really has to tell you for it to actually be felt. This comes across more as undermining a metoo culture, and I think it ends up supporting terrible people that make so-called 'great' art. Sure, they might hurt people, but who cares it seems to say, we never see them or show their impact, only how much it might derail the 'genius' career. In some ways the edited video that comes out is a reverse metaphor for the movie. It shows all the parts that support and never lets us see the hurt. IDK, I wanted to like this so much more. The Banshees of Inisherin: I think Siobhán is my favorite character. This also comes across as one that I'm missing too much of Irish history to make a full picture of. It read almost as a metaphor with only 60% of it filled in. Brendan Gleeson's actions are so intense as to elevate it past reality, into a world of fable? That said it was pretty amazing. Intense, very funny in some ways but depressing too. I wish we could have heard the final piece of music together, but perhaps that would be me missing the point. Tomorrow we're doing Late Spring and 2001. Potentially 8 1/2 if we can fit that in!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2022 10:48
|
|
|
Carillon posted:Doing a mini-movie festival here at our house. Started yesterday with: In the followup day we did: Late Spring: Pretty amazing. I loved the 'slice-of-life' approach. It's so beautifully shot. Very hard ending for me, it feels like she's been fully erased, and in part because she's not even in the final scene! Marriage is compared to a graveyard, and it really does feel like death. The only people still 'alive' at the end are the divorcee and the widower who lied about a marriage to get her off. I'm not certain how Ozu intended the film to be read, but I found it very compelling. 2001: A Space Odyssey: Just fun. Kubrick really doesn't seem to believe in exposition, which I'm on board with, so you have to put the pieces together yourself. I'm I think in the minority here of not loving the 'stargate' sequences, I think it's too long and doesn't hold my attention. That very much could be because I'm at home and it plays better on the big screen. My partner really liked that though, so perhaps its more a me problem than a display issue. Taxi Driver: Fine? I didn't hate it by any stretch, and thought there was some interesting choices made by the script. Overall it wouldn't work as well as it does if it wasn't being made by a team who all seem to be at the top of their game. The taxi drivers and their interactions together were the stuff I enjoyed the most, his obsession with Cybil Shepherd and then weird assassination attempt on Palantine not as much. At lot just felt pointless? Which is maybe the point, but idk. 8 1/2: Solid, but confirms I don't tend to love dream sequences or semi-magical realism type narratives. The whole film is also about a breakdown, though clearly very different than Taxi Driver. A lot of self-inflicted wounds here, but I guess part of that is he's in a rut and trying to break free. Happy to have seen it, but maybe it'll take another watch to understand where the brilliance others have found lies.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2023 03:13
|
|
|
Breetai posted:May be an insufficient bongrips issue, frankly. Haha that definitely explains why they liked it more then. Gaius Marius posted:Have you seen Pickpocket? It's the rossetta stone for everything Schrader has ever wrote. I haven't, I saw Schrader's First Reformed and really enjoyed that one. It touched on the dispair of the world about things beyond our control, but had an interesting approach. I also didn't really appreciate Raging Bull, so maybe I'm a late Schrader fan.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2023 09:19
|
|
|
smug n stuff posted:My first couple of movies of 2023: Oh man! I saw it at home, so jealous you got to see it on the big screen!
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2023 19:52
|
|
|
A Man Escaped: Just so good. It's so deliberative, and I love how it really focuses on the process of escape, that gaining your freedom isn't just finding a tunnel hidden behind a poster. It's also so claustrophobic, the cell is so small and cramped, the with Jost it feels so untenable. I loved it. It reminded me of Escape From Alcatraz which I saw years ago now. Both escape scenes are so taut and amazing.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2023 20:01
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:
So good, it and Maud's are my partner's favorites. A lot of the moral tales to me come across as the men thinking they're playing 5d chess when they are really eating paste. They are so good at locking into the narrator or protagonists perspective with just enough ironic distance that you can see how misapplied they are and often how they're actually coming across.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2023 04:54
|
|
|
Air Force One: I generally really like this movie, but my partner asked me what it's about and I glibly replied it's The End of History the movie. And now I can't unsee it, watching it everything really comes into focus when I said that. I still really like it but man that's the truth.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2023 10:10
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:
It's really interesting because it feels like the larval stage or prototype of like 3 different genres, even with the usage of the photo transfer presaging all the csi stuff we get. It doesn't really have a plot in some ways, they really die the investigation. I also love/hate Stewart's change from a cop lover to skeptic.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2023 09:33
|
|
|
Broadcast News: some great performances, but sign of the times I was a bit confused at first when they called news anchors 'journalists'. Made me do a double take and actually think about it! Also great performance, but the script for Albert Brooks is like proto-incel. Not sure why he's given a pass for that poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2023 07:56
|
|
|
[b]Free Guy[/g]: it was fine! I expected it to be worse, but I didn't hate it. It really didn't need to be so long, it felt like there was a better movie in there, one that felt less baggy, but I like Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi and this delivers them pretty well.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 6, 2023 03:41
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The cover of Only You is also awful Can't get all my awesomeness into just a cover it's true. So I'm not just poo poo posting, I watched Big Brown Eyes and there's a whole lot of interesting parts in a really weird package. The dialogue is generally great, and the chemistry between Grant and Bennett is awesome, but the plot is loving weird. I'm not sure who needed a movie about how the cops are too hamstrung by the laws to do their job properly, but it's not great, and really seems tacked on. At least Dirty Harry tries to earn it, this corruption feels laughable. Carillon fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Mar 15, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2023 22:36
|
|
|
A Tale of Springtime: I loved the stupid posts in the dining room taking up space, but not actually adding anything of value. It's the metaphor of the movie in a lot of ways, that you don't realize how much of your life are routines and practices that are too entrenched to ever remove, but you still have to work around them. Jeanne is played quite subtly, but I disagree with other reviewers that she's flat, I think she does a great job of showing you someone who's process is very internal. The whole age difference piece was very much not great though, maybe cultural, but came across as icky. A Tale of Winter: I think my favorite of the bunch, though I didn't love the ending. Her running off the bus and him not following made so much more sense to me, but I get that it's not the movie Rohmer was making. It really feels about faith though, and Catholicism, more so than his other movies I've seen. Felicie essentially believes that Charles will come back and, through the miracle of faith, he does. Still interesting, I enjoyed the way it explores her relationship with the other dudes, it felt interesting. A Summer's Tale: Also really solid, Gaspard comes across like a very relatable shithead. I feel most folks either were, or knew someone like that when they were younger. Margot must be bored to put up with him. The music was fun, and the ending line of how his music always comes first was great. It makes Brittany look beautiful and like the South of France, with the sun and the colors. A Tale of Autumn: I think the weakest of the four for me. Some really interesting things, but the philosophy professor, Etienne is a real scumbag, pursing his highschool students. Maybe cultural, but comes across super poorly to me. Isabelle also isn't great as she's leading the guy from the ad on, and really screws him over, then acts like it's all for his benefit. It's a weird movie where two of the characters are trying to force a third to find love without her participation at all. It's pretty beautifully shot though, and interesting enough that it doesn't drag.
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2023 23:18
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:4 Rohmers in a row seems intense We spread them out, they also are pretty easy watching.
|
|
#
¿
May 9, 2023 05:00
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 08:20 |
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:Solaris 1972 or 2002?
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2023 22:45
|
|