Films Recently Watched

[lumpenprol]

just watched Gangster Squad. Man if you want an example of what a bad director looks like, look no further. He has everything at his disposal - period cars, lavish sets, fancy clothing - and a laundry list of strong actors - Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Nick friggin' Nolte, Ryan mumbles Gosling, Giovanni Ribisi, etc - but he just can't make it work. At all. All the actors phone it in or give cartoonish performances, and as for tone, the director can't seem to settle on one. Is it an over-the-top cartoonish period gangster flick, something like Dick Tracy or Green Hornet? Or is it a serious drama in the vein of Chinatown, LA Confidential, Untouchables, etc? He can't seem to make up his mind, so it's just a pastiche, with zero surprises. Really terrible flick, you can't even spot the potential hidden under the surface. Who greenlit this? How'd they attract such big name stars? I have no idea....searching IMDB now...oh shit he directed Zombieland. That explains it. I hated that film although some loved it for the intro and Bill Murray cameo.

 

1/10

[jhonny]

Undefeated - 9/10

[eugene]

just watched Gangster Squad. Man if you want an example of what a bad director looks like, look no further. He has everything at his disposal - period cars, lavish sets, fancy clothing - and a laundry list of strong actors - Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Nick friggin' Nolte, Ryan mumbles Gosling, Giovanni Ribisi, etc - but he just can't make it work. At all. All the actors phone it in or give cartoonish performances, and as for tone, the director can't seem to settle on one. Is it an over-the-top cartoonish period gangster flick, something like Dick Tracy or Green Hornet? Or is it a serious drama in the vein of Chinatown, LA Confidential, Untouchables, etc? He can't seem to make up his mind, so it's just a pastiche, with zero surprises. Really terrible flick, you can't even spot the potential hidden under the surface. Who greenlit this? How'd they attract such big name stars? I have no idea....searching IMDB now...oh shit he directed Zombieland. That explains it. I hated that film although some loved it for the intro and Bill Murray cameo.

 

1/10

spot on, there's a lot of shit made in hollywood but this one somehow felt particularly depressing in regards to amounts of cash and capable actors wasted on such irredeemable trash.

[AJW]

Greenberg - 8.5/10

Did the job well, Ben Stiller was actually not too bad in this.

 

Night On The Galactic Railroad - 9/10

Nice relaxed pace, surreal anime. Reminded me of Cat Soup.

 

 

The Virgin Suicides - 6.5/10

Have not read the book and decided to check out the film based on listening to the soundtrack by Air. It was alright, but the prevailent high school rom com atmopshere clashed somewhat with the serious subject matter and diluted any possible real feeling of drama or emotional connection with what was going on in the film.

 

 

Tokyo!

part 1: Interior Design - 6/10

part 2: Merde - 9/10

part 3: Shaking Tokyo - 7/10

Interesting collection of shorts that (apart from Interior Design) really have enough potential to each hold their own full length film. Interior Design was a bit too whimsical, Merde was brilliant the bit where he is trapsing along the streets of Tokyo randomly lobbing grenades around is one of the most visceral things i've seen on film for a while. Shaking Tokyo just didn't make too much sense to me but managed to create a weird/intigueing enough atmosphere. It also introduced me to the term 'Hikikomori'; a term for a kind of long term recluse, apparently something that is quite rampant in Japan amongst youths and young adults who withdraw from society largely as a reaction toward the fast paced and highly demanding nature of Japans educational system. This led me to discover an anime entitled "Welcome to the N.H.K" (I have yet to see it) which deals with such a Hikikomori.

[chim]

The Cooler - 8/10

 

Really good film, albeit a bit fantastical in some scenes. Will Macy is my hero.

Edited April 29, 2013 by chimera slot mom

[Guest Blue Peter Cheat]

McCullin - 9/10

[soundwave]

The Shining - after watching the Room 237 I had to give it a spin on blu-ray. There's certainly metaphors beyond a mere slasher/horror and deliberate continuity errors from such a perfectionist. Most of the spiel from the documentry tells you more about the ocd of the fans but theres no denying the odd way the movie is put together. Jack Nicholson is the shit too. Kubrick/10

Edited April 29, 2013 by soundwave

[Guest Mirezzi]

Room 237 was an embarrassment and likely funded by Alex Jones.

 

To put Geoffrey Cocks in the same category as a bunch of bored and/or insane idiots and conspiracy theorists made me turn it off after twenty minutes. Cocks wrote an entire book about Kubrick, not just The Shining, and his arguments were powerful. They were also methodically and articulately expressed and went through the traditional peer review and academic refereeing. He never bothered with saying what "Kubrick intended..." because he wasn't interested in intentionality criticism. He's a very capable and respected academic historian whose basic notion was that Kubrick's filmography was heavily influenced by Kubrick's own (and well documented) pre-occupation with the Holocaust.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Mirezzi

[Guest Mirezzi]

By the way, for any that recall, I've raved about The Wolf at the Door many times and I think at least half a dozen WATMMers would immensely enjoy that book. Yes, it's at times dense and involves incredibly close textual analysis, but it's also approachable to film geeks and people fascinated by history.

[Guest zaphod]

looks pretty excessive. maybe i'll check it out but i'm not a fan of extreme analysis especially when it's as subjective as that sounds.

 

pain and gain - michael bay might be constructing some kind of post modern performance art with his films. i don't know if this was good, but i enjoyed it the same way i enjoyed the rock and the first transformers. basically agree with andrew o'hehir's piece in salon.

Edited April 29, 2013 by zaphod

[Guest Mirezzi]

looks pretty excessive. maybe i'll check it out but i'm not a fan of extreme analysis especially when it's as subjective as that sounds.

 

It's neither extreme nor absurdly subjective. He makes what starts as a head-scratching argument, then proceeds to boggle readers with support for that argument. But yeah, fuck Room 237. Little known fact: Kubrick spent the majority of his career trying to put together a Holocaust project, but it never quite materialized for a number of reasons, mostly his belabored and agonizing obsession with the topic.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Mirezzi

[Guest zaphod]

what, the aryan papers? i thought that was pretty well known. maybe i'll check the book out, i've certainly never thought of his films as a response to the holocaust. that kind of analysis tends to ruin art, like reading any number of papers on what the end of 2001 represents. can a thing just be?

Edited April 29, 2013 by zaphod

[Guest Mirezzi]

Well, this form of criticism exists outside the art itself. Just because I read a great essay about or concerned with a particular text doesn't change my own reading or experience. At least, that's where I am now in life. Once upon a time, I would let criticism - however poorly written or argued - alter my own reading.

 

I didn't think Aryan Papers was that well known outside film nerd / academic circles. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Guest Mirezzi]

The Impossible - Aptly named - a bland, straightforward white tourist disaster porno that foregrounds the 1st world problems of A Family On Holiday caught up in 3rd World Bad Weather. The Thai population are like martian props; incompetent, not to be trusted and sure as shit not to be cared about. In the end, A Family On Holiday is whisked away on a private charter by their insurance company.

 

Based on a true story about a Spanish family (replaced by angelic blonde white folk to justify the enormous budget), The Impossible was helmed by Juan Antonio Bayona, whose film The Orphanage is one of my favorite "domestic horror" films of the last twenty years. Clearly, he was outside his comfort zone here. Toward the middle, it was so melodramatic and heavyhanded that it resembled an episode of Lost if directed by Clint Eastwood (revered for being on time, under budget, and allowing actors to suck). There were scenes that were so broken - flubbed lines, bad performance, continuity gaffes - that it's amazing they were part of the cut, which gives me the impression the editors were cobbling together this half-story from endless scraps of bad filmmaking.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Mirezzi

[Guest Jimmy McMessageboard]

McCullin - 9/10

 

If you mean McGruber then I agree

[lumpenprol]

The Impossible - Aptly named - a bland, straightforward white tourist disaster porno that foregrounds the 1st world problems of A Family On Holiday caught up in 3rd World Bad Weather. The Thai population are like martian props; incompetent, not to be trusted and sure as shit not to be cared about. In the end, A Family On Holiday is whisked away on a private charter by their insurance company.

 

Based on a true story about a Spanish family (replaced by angelic blonde white folk to justify the enormous budget), The Impossible was helmed by Juan Antonio Bayona, whose film The Orphanage is one of my favorite "domestic horror" films of the last twenty years. Clearly, he was outside his comfort zone here. Toward the middle, it was so melodramatic and heavyhanded that it resembled an episode of Lost if directed by Clint Eastwood (revered for being on time, under budget, and allowing actors to suck). There were scenes that were so broken - flubbed lines, bad performance, continuity gaffes - that it's amazing they were part of the cut, which gives me the impression the editors were cobbling together this half-story from endless scraps of bad filmmaking.

lol. I think you missed one point, Naomi Watt's face curiously distorted as she tries to cry through her botox. And how did Ewan McGregor go from being such a live wire in Trainspotting, to this overly earnest, bland dude with distractingly capped teeth?

 

In fact this'll be another case where I give a pass to a film that you slate. I thought it was pretty good for what it was, it had a lot of "Spielberg-isms", for good and ill. Great disaster sequences. Excessively maudlin and emotionally manipulative, with various climaxes glaringly staged for maximum tear-jerking. But it might be a good film for families, provided young ones can make it through the intensity of the disaster scenes. I liked it for how straightforward it was, and the focus on family (unlike, say, 127 Days or whatever it was called with the solo guy trapped in the canyon...there have been enough "stranded boys" flicks).

[Guest Mirezzi]

Now, I think you're just fucking with me!

 

lol. I think you missed one point, Naomi Watt's face curiously distorted as she tries to cry through her botox. And how did Ewan McGregor go from being such a live wire in Trainspotting, to this overly earnest, bland dude with distractingly capped teeth?

Also, ^ = lol.

[Guest boo]

The Impossible - Aptly named - a bland, straightforward white tourist disaster porno that foregrounds the 1st world problems of A Family On Holiday caught up in 3rd World Bad Weather. The Thai population are like martian props; incompetent, not to be trusted and sure as shit not to be cared about. In the end, A Family On Holiday is whisked away on a private charter by their insurance company.

 

Based on a true story about a Spanish family (replaced by angelic blonde white folk to justify the enormous budget), The Impossible was helmed by Juan Antonio Bayona, whose film The Orphanage is one of my favorite "domestic horror" films of the last twenty years. Clearly, he was outside his comfort zone here. Toward the middle, it was so melodramatic and heavyhanded that it resembled an episode of Lost if directed by Clint Eastwood (revered for being on time, under budget, and allowing actors to suck). There were scenes that were so broken - flubbed lines, bad performance, continuity gaffes - that it's amazing they were part of the cut, which gives me the impression the editors were cobbling together this half-story from endless scraps of bad filmmaking.

hahhaha why did you watch that??

[Guest Blue Peter Cheat]

 

McCullin - 9/10

 

If you mean McGruber then I agree

 

 

Ha, no, this one: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/jan/06/mccullin-review-documentary-don-mccullin

 

I found the man himself as fascinating as his photographs. There's something incredibly solid and permanent about him. If ever I thought there was someone who may never die, it would be him.

 

No idea what McGruber is, will check it out...

Edited April 30, 2013 by Blue Peter Cheat

[Friendly Foil]

R. Quite good.

[azatoth]

just watched Gangster Squad. Man if you want an example of what a bad director looks like, look no further. He has everything at his disposal - period cars, lavish sets, fancy clothing - and a laundry list of strong actors - Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Nick friggin' Nolte, Ryan mumbles Gosling, Giovanni Ribisi, etc - but he just can't make it work. At all. All the actors phone it in or give cartoonish performances, and as for tone, the director can't seem to settle on one. Is it an over-the-top cartoonish period gangster flick, something like Dick Tracy or Green Hornet? Or is it a serious drama in the vein of Chinatown, LA Confidential, Untouchables, etc? He can't seem to make up his mind, so it's just a pastiche, with zero surprises. Really terrible flick, you can't even spot the potential hidden under the surface. Who greenlit this? How'd they attract such big name stars? I have no idea....searching IMDB now...oh shit he directed Zombieland. That explains it. I hated that film although some loved it for the intro and Bill Murray cameo.

 

1/10

 

 

Yeah, watched it yesterday and I felt the same, especially about the tone of the film. Really bad.

[Suffocate Peon]

Don't know how or why, but enjoyed a film about male strippers more than all the other eventful stuff that happens in every other film listed underneath. Probably proving again that it's how you do something...Soderbergh's shots and pacing, and editing made the film for me. There's a shot where a couple walk on a beach and the floor is cut off, so you get them walk in front of the changing waves behind them. Or they sit at a table and there's a go kart track behind them. The camera just sits from afar, and a few minutes in you see a character walk in from behind past the go kart track. It's genius and probably wasted on this film. I thought Soderbergh was on form, and the film didn't feel lacking and cold and detached and unfinished like Haywire really does and Contagion a little bit less does.

 

Channing and Matthew are great. (not going to try to spell his second name) Channing really reacts and is honest. You see it in actors who aren't as well trained and don't try to 'act'. They seem more in the moment and less in a world of their own, less going through the acting motions. The story isn't even good, just everything else is. Most stories aren't good. I listened to a review that made fun of Channing's acting in one scene where he's lost for words, they actually said they found it too honest, like as if Channing himself was losing it, like it was awkward. I found it refreshing...likewise a scene where one character does impressions for his sister. The detached style means everything is framed to perfection, i looked forward to every scene because i knew he'd present it in an interesting way..

 

Magic Mike - 8

Shame - 7

A Company Man - 7

Castaway on the Moon - 7

Room 237 - 7

Hana-Bi - 7

Zero Dark Thirty - 7

Compliance - 7

The Station Agent - 6

Sightseers - 6

Lincoln - 6

Oblivion - 6

Premium Rush - 5

 

Olympus has Fallen - 1

 

I thought this was fucking shit, i can barely be bothered to even let it be known to anyone I've seen it, it's like any number of inconsequential things you do in a day that is not worth talking about.. but thinking about it afterwards is just about worthwhile. I'm not spoiler-boxing anything because that would imply anyone could watch this film and be surprised by anything in it, and to imply that would be offending you.

 

Like in the film's dullest moments, like say the final fight between the goodie and baddie, I was hoping the director would find an opportunity for Eckhart to scream out 'MIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEE!'...because Butler's character is called Mike...maybe a knife angled perilously close to his throat, or a moment he falls through a wall or something, it could have been possible. I could have laughed to myself as the cinema carried on being bored. I was susceptible whilst watching the film to humour so dire that that would have been a highlight. You have to find something funny about a character not knowing what hashtag on a keyboard is and things like that to get through the film. I was waiting for it, but no. That would have saved the fight, and possibly the film. A Breaking Bad reference won't. Especially when I might assume that they'll do that thing where someone watches a whole series in a weekend which I also hate, more than this film.

 

As anyone who has seen the scene in The Core where basically half the crew are crushed to death by a shrinking spaceship will know, Eckhart does anguish terribly. He spends about 5 minutes after that bit ...spoiler, [see above]...repeating the same sentence but in different ways; 'why didn't you just... open the doors, I could have saved them'. 'I was sooo close'.

 

This film doesn't even have that. He cries and says 'i will never give them the code', but then he does anyway. You even don't see it so when watching the film it doesn't even register even though the whole film is based around these 3 codes. Which tells you how unengaging it is. It all takes place in darkly lit rooms. It's not like the brightness is down, but that also that the curtains are open. The daylight scenes are also dull looking, they take place at 7pm. The film cost 70 million, it's too boring and expensive to be a B movie. It has no sense of fun. Unless fun can be defined as Butler running around in pitch darkness executing people from about 5 inches away. That's not even hard. In it's moments of actual tension, like the president's kid having to be retrieved and escorted out of the building to safety, it scuppers it entirely. At least ratchet up the tension, at least try to create a feeling that anything can happen and he's not yet safe. God it steals something from The Raid. I forgot that. There's some misogyny in there and there's loads of films I watch that are labelled such that go over my head, but this film is generally anaemic so it stood out. It's really unnecessary violence. It's a film where people get blasted away from far away, shot in the head, killed off screen, blown up and then it proceeds to lay into a middle aged woman for like 5 minutes...why ? to create DRAMA? To allow Eckhart to have another go at crying convincingly..okay. Under Siege 2 has pointy needles near eyes and those who've just given away the magic code being thrown from a bridge, elegant things. You don't see their mangled bodies by the rocks.

 

The best scene is probably the plane that wastes everyone in the surrounding area of the white house. The continuity is fantastic, shots from afar where people are so small they're invisible, then ultra zoomed in shots of people running away/dieing. It's the best scene because it has actual scale, there's some grandiose spectacle to it.

 

It's funny that Morgan Freeman is in it but not the president...wait for it...now he is. But in being so appears like he's suffering from the same fate as the character in Holy Motors, and just not coping with the lack of variety his profession provides him. He's never been more bored, and more shit as acting president. He has a white beard and you see more of it than the room he's in. I watched Air Force One last night, and it's great, one thing I noticed beyond the myriad of things that make it so superior to this film is that the generals stand up and walk about a bit, and look sort of urgent. In Olympus has Fallen they're useless and sort of depressed. They mostly mumble to each other and themselves. If cut correctly, it could seem like Morgan Freeman is mumbling to himself why on earth he's in this film. The film echos cliches from every hostage situation film you can think of. Are you thinking of some? Do they all have engaging baddies? Even Under Siege 2? Air Force One is also great because it has Gary Oldman playing a Russian terrorist.

 

Afterwards I was amused by the realisation (well, I was told) that the main baddie was also the baddie in the worst Bond film there's ever been. That it triggered a thought process that considred that they looked at every other hostage film ever and all the charismatic baddies that they have and then chose him. Not once in the film does he get angry, not once is he menacing, he has cool glasses, he's a nerd, hit political reasons are marginal. There's a traitor in the film who you have no idea why he's; atraitrotocnatbebothereddkkdkllgnnfmfmghhh,jk mkkmiljjioeifjiiikgnn[...it flat-out steals a scene from Die Hard, it's so blatant i just visualised the Die Hard scene in my head as the film carried on. You will not be able to help it. It's so inferior, it makes less sense, it lasts about 30 seconds so to be pointless anyway.

 

 

The Last Stand - 0

 

I hated this, i think hating a film seems irrational, like you're investing a bit too much into something so harmless, but i endured it and I hate being bored and seeing so much waste on screen that it just made me angry at how predictable and cliched it is without appearing like it even knows it. I found the tone to be bafflingly uneven throughout, it takes itself more seriously than the trailer suggests it does, it felt like it was written by the teenage son of a film producer, I didn't know what was happening or where to look when it was trying to do drama. Is it supposed to be a parody of a poorly written tv show. When I skipped through the film beforehand, I thought I'd downloaded a different The Last Stand. It actually looked good at that point, lots of nice shots.

 

Not until the end are there any actual jokes. I noticed about three, one was so bad just to witness it happening was unbearable. I wanted it to end. I watched this purely because i loved Kim Jee-woon's previous two films, how cinematic and stylish they are, he has a clear knack for film making like David Fincher does. This is his Benjamin Button. It's not his Panic Room. I really hope Kim Jee-woon does not make another Hollywood film. To me this is like a waste of a film from him, instead of this I could have got a film that would have thrilled me. I found the direction to be clearly classy in a way but also really superficial, i could not engage with any of it, not even the chase scene of the escaped convict, i didn't know whether that was due to the poor storytelling or his direction, or both combined for absolute ineffectiveness.

[Guest isaki]

gattaca - great film, top notch prop work and imagination from andrew niccol. do recommend/10

 

due west: our sex journey - Asian film about a 16 yr old and his journey into sex-life. quite stupid really, but not awful I guess. has its relations - 6/10

Edited April 30, 2013 by isaki

[Schlitze]

Untouchable - Damn fine. Eloquent. Nice. Pretty much everything I expected of it. I loved those damn paragliding scenes! that looks scary yet enthralling. Very well filmed scene aswell. The relationship between the two characters didn't engross me as much as the two in Rust and Bone, this went for a more humourous touch, but didn't fall into the trap of taking any obvious turns in the script. So i'll give it the same score as R'n'B - 7.6/10

[Guest zaphod]

what would it have to do to make you go 7.7?