Re: Seen any good films lately? [3]

by malickfan Fri Jan 19, 2018 6:01 pm

Four Lions was morbidly hilarious and very sharply written, was surprised Bendybrick Cucumbersnozzle had a cameo.

by halfwise Fri Jan 19, 2018 6:21 pm

Yeah, and there was no reason to pull him in for that bit. I think he must be friends with the director.

by Mrs Figg Fri Jan 19, 2018 7:23 pm

just watched finale of Babylon Berlin, boy was that good. glad to hear they are making new series.

by halfwise Fri Jan 26, 2018 3:47 am

Just saw The Post, and OMG I didn't think they were still making films like this. As much an ode to women's empowerment as anything else. And I take back my statement that John Williams had lost his mojo - it seems he needs an inspiring story, and he'll write an inspiring score. The last crop of Star Wars films didn't do it for him (come to think of it, it's not clear the prequels did either). But the score was amazing. The film was amazing.

by Forest Shepherd Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:22 am

I was put off by the premise of the The Post, assuming that the film was simply filling in the annual slot of "Journalists save the day concerning issue that is popular in Hollywood at the moment". So your praise has surprised me, to say the least. Perhaps I will see it now.

I mentioned Four Lions somewhere in this thread last year, I also really enjoyed it. I think my favourite part was when the two characters travel to the Middle East and join up.

by halfwise Fri Jan 26, 2018 1:05 pm

Let's just say that in The Post Spielberg temporarily abandons his typical over-mannered candy-coated direction and returns to his Schindler's List integrity. Not so weighty of course, in fact surprisingly funny. But it has the subtle humor of truth rather than filming by formula. They have a couple of script-writers that I've never seen before, and I think that's the secret. Their template was the absurdity of reality; all they had to do was tauten it up.

by Mrs Figg Tue Jan 30, 2018 12:44 pm

saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2. whats with the unbearably cute small log?

by Forest Shepherd Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:10 am

It's been a while, what are you talking about Figgs?

A log?

Seen any good films lately? [3] - Page 23 Gotg2bgroottshirtartmain1495565110376

by Mrs Figg Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:41 pm

yep that's the unbearably cute little woody log. Very Happy

by halfwise Thu Feb 08, 2018 2:13 pm

How come I'd never heard of Withnail and I before? Justifiably a cult film in England, basically unheard of here.

by Forest Shepherd Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:33 pm

Grant looks so gaunt in that!

by azriel Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:36 pm

He did but, he was young & youth can do that to you, plus, he was meant to be out of work & struggling, tho the odd spliff doesn't help your looks & he was fond of that. Cooking the chicken on a brick in the farmhouse was funny Very Happy

The ending was sad really, seeing him in the rain wandering along Regents Park.

by halfwise Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:46 pm

In the extras it said he had to lose a lot of weight for the role. That may have helped lend a certain desperate air to his depiction.

by chris63 Mon Feb 12, 2018 5:44 am

Blade Runner 2.

Seen any good films lately? [3] - Page 23 Giphy

by bungobaggins Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:15 pm

chris63 wrote:Blade Runner 2.

This is true, I fell asleep several times.

by Forest Shepherd Mon Feb 12, 2018 11:55 pm

I liked it a lot! Even if the end slacked off a bit.

by Pettytyrant101 Wed Feb 21, 2018 3:20 am

{{Saw Cloverfield Paradox tonight. Didn't know much about it going in save I'd heard it didn't make sense and was over complicated.
I disagree on both counts. As far as sci-fi premises go anyone whose watched any series of sci-fi or read any sci-fi should have no problems with the premise (this will be spoilery).

Spoiler:

But overall its entertaining enough, has its thoughtful moments, bursts of tension and action, well shot, directed and acted and answers and raises questions about the Cloverfield universe in equal measure. Nothing spectacular but a decent enough interesting watch.}}

by Eldorion Fri Feb 23, 2018 7:06 am

Black Panther.

Hot damn.

I'm way too tired to say much about it at the moment but my first impression is that I thought it was fantastic.

by halfwise Fri Feb 23, 2018 4:34 pm

I've kinda wanted to see it based on reviews and fan reaction, but the trailer does such a bad job of conveying story that I haven't gotten excited enough to make the trip.

(the local theatre in Harlem has showings every half hour. Razz

)

by Eldorion Sat Feb 24, 2018 3:22 am

I tend to prefer trailers that are made more as teasers rather than give away a lot of plot information, but YMMV. Shrugging

As for the movie itself, I really liked the story, but I think that the performances stood out the most about it to me. Michael B. Jordan in particular was fantastic. Aside from Loki I've generally been underwhelmed by MCU antagonists even in movies that I've liked a lot, but Black Panther really delivered on that front. Chadwick Boseman in the title role and Lupita Nyong'o were also stand-outs. The worst thing I can say about the film is that some of the action were scenes were a bit visually messy IMO, but I think the action was well-integrated into the story which was nice compared to a lot of blockbusters were it feels like the movie is put on hold so they can fit in the perfunctory fight scenes. I'm not the best person to try to discuss the social themes of the movie but I will say that I'm pleasantly surprised to see a mainstream movie with so many Afrofuturist elements be so phenomenally successful.

by Forest Shepherd Sat Feb 24, 2018 10:50 am

It being a Marvel movie certainly helps. The thing I like about the movie is that it took something of which I had never heard and did not care about at all, and made that interesting.

I saw PotC 5 (!) tonight. It was so awful. Just total trash. It was so utterly abysmal that it made me question why it is that while all movies are a series of scenes involving actors talking and doing things, some are so much better than others. Strange how one movie will leave you sitting there entranced, while another will provoke you to yelling obscenities at the screen. It all comes down to apparently minor differences in how movies are made.

by halfwise Sat Feb 24, 2018 12:46 pm

I have no idea what PotC is.
EDIT: Pirates o t C.

by Forest Shepherd Sat Feb 24, 2018 7:38 pm

The Pirates of the Caribbean!

by Forest Shepherd Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:02 pm

(slightly spoiler-y review, but not too bad.)

I watched Annihilation last night in theatres. It's the most recent film from that writer/director of Ex Machina It was far more abstract than I was expecting! I'd say the movie suffers some from CGI overload, unfortunately, but there is still enough nitty-gritty effects thrown in to satisfy the purists out there.

Basically, it tells the story of a biologist whose husband goes missing while on a special ops mission. Through indirect circumstances, she eventually retraces her husband's last steps into a phenomenon called "The Shimmer", so called by the government agencies who are monitoring and policing the borders of an expanding region of "contamination" on the coast of the northwest United States. Surrounded by walls of soap-bubble like light refraction, the area is a dead zone for all radio and satellite communications, and anyone who ventures inside of it never comes out again. The main character joins a group of women scientists tasked with finding the source of the Shimmer: they hope to accomplish what the various military teams sent in before could not: find out why this is happening and then return to tell of it. Not really a spoiler: one of the earliest shots in the movie is of some kind of asteroid hurtling towards earth and striking a lighthouse. So the idea that this is all caused by some kind of alien-something is explicit for the audience early on.

Annihilation is a dark horror movie at times. Violent, gory, with subtle hints of Alien's body horror and set design strewn in here and there. It definitely earns its "R" rating. The characters are none of them happy people. The protagonist claims that she has something to go back to, but her marriage has some troubling undertones to it. I really can't stop comparing it to Alien, especially the most recent Prometheus sequel, if only because both films attempt to explore, in a philosophical or religious manner, this idea of some kind of life-form replacing or building onto one's own form. There is a strong existential threat in both movies, and themes of transformation.

The plot is not the strongest part of the movie, but rather the questions it attempts to raise about the nature of biological life, for humans in particular. There is one scene wherein a psychologist talks about how everyone self-destructs, to some extent in some part of their life, and that idea ties into the movie's exploration of human consciousness and the ways in which that consciousness can carry on past one's own annihilation: whether one dies through violent death, willing nirvana, or other, more bizarre ends like reincarnation by fire.

Thankfully, this movie mostly shrugs off the unnecessary baggage of the horror genre--only one scene wandered into run-of-the-mill horror cliche, and even that scene was not bad--and instead focuses on building to a kind of supernatural climax by sending the characters through an increasingly disturbing, but surreally beautiful, landscape. This landscape is mirrored in their own states of mind as the horrible and the surreal begins to break their sanity. I guess the main point of the movie is how the main characters, this group of female scientists, respond to what they find in the Shimmer. It's like a Litmus test for their worldviews, and a test of their endurance and strength.

I could go on, there's quite a lot of interesting ideas wrapped up in this movie, which I like to think is thanks to the author upon whose book the film is based. It's not a perfect movie by any stretch. I found myself wondering at some of the behaviour of the characters, in particular their methods. The complete lack of bio-hazard protection, for example, before entering the Shimmer seems like a particularly bad idea. And unlike in Arrival, we do not get a good sense of what exactly the government is trying to do as they attempt to contain and explore this threatening presence. But apart from a rocky start, I really enjoyed the development of the philosophical themes of this movie, and the conclusion actually lived up to my expectations. You know, if whatever is "at the lighthouse" (the center of the Shimmer) were a let-down, the movie would have suffered.

Probably... 8/10, mainly for the originality of some of the movie's ideas, memorable visuals, and the characters not sucking. The acting is the good kind where you don't really notice it most of the time. Portman carries the movie, although the other actors and actresses are good too. It was nice to see Jennifer Jason Leigh in a different kind of role after her horrible cussing outlaw in The Hateful Eight, but she was oddly subdued in most of her scenes. I mean, she didn't seem bored, but kind of depressed and accepting. I suppose it makes sense for her character eventually, but at first she comes across as kind of mean or disinterested.

by halfwise Mon Mar 05, 2018 5:41 pm

So what's up with The Shape of Water (which I haven't seen)?

I mean, we've already had a love story involving the creature from the black lagoon, it was called The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Did we really need another one?