Films Recently Watched

[Taupe Beats]

Samuel Fuller's "The Steel Helmet". Tarantino's got some shitty influences.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Taupe Beats said:

Samuel Fuller's "The Steel Helmet".

Sam Fuller is so good! White Dog will forever be in my top ten.

[Banffspring72]

Revisited the movie The Falcon and the Snowman. I always felt a feeling of warmth from the introduction of snippets of real life events during the opening. Towards the end of the film during the Interrogation, the images of the falcon flying has me thinking about the artwork from BOC. If anyone seen this 1985 film, perhaps one would get this thought as well. 

[whosebrian]

On 12/21/2020 at 3:02 PM, Stickfigger said:

Real talk : Nolan launched Tenet in the middle of a pandemic so he had something to blame for it's terrible performance

Quote

Ti esrever dna ti pilf, nwod gniht ym tup

Missy Elliott

[QQQ]

On 12/9/2020 at 9:24 PM, iococoi said:

Pusher (1996)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117407/

intense

i watched the first 2 Pusher films recently, they're way better than any of Refn's later works

[Taupe Beats]

Clouds of Sils Maria

Binoche is great, as always (the list of directors she's worked with might be the most impressive I've seen). On that note, there's not a bad performance in this film (I'm not huge on the character Chloe Grace Moretz plays but she did as good as anyone could with the role). There's a lot of ham-fisted takes on generation gaps with the ultimate attempt at a one-sided acceptance unearned. 

Spoiler

Binoche's resigned acceptance that Moretz will not linger on a scene a few seconds longer, giving Binoche's character a greater depth. Binoche accepts it but it's obviously still with judgment. She's since tied it to a generational difference in interviews afterwards. She must have discussed this in depth with Olivier Assayas to confirm his views on the scene as well.

Kristen Stewart is also great in this film. There is something so effective with her performance that shows how a relationship that's not romantic at all can have the same tensions and intimacies.

As well, the cloud sequence is as pretty and indulgent as you'd want. Now I'm even more curious about the time-lapsed cloud shot in Herzog's "Heart of Glass".

[Kid Lukie]

Just watched Soul. Best Pixar film ever. Really enjoyable and playful take on existentialism. It has that cheesey kids Disney-esque vibe to it, but with more than enough content to satisfies Adults too! Hits all the right notes.  Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on the soundtrack too~

Edited December 30, 2020 by Kid Lukie
added stuffs

[dr lopez]

thought it was pretty blah. Although the tront music was good

[Limo]

“Blah”? Really? Thought it was ...

Surprising.

Not “surprisingly good” but plain “surprising”. “Surprising” that Pixar/Disney would make a movie that wasn’t in the slightest suitable for kids.

Some sequences I even thought were quite good, such as the English dude in the ship.

+1 did not regret spending time watching this.

As far as the sound track is concerned: they had the good sense to let someone else do the jazzy bits. These were not great but definitely serviceable - and much more important to the movie than the two note illbient pap Trent & Atticus barfed up.

[Taupe Beats]

A River Called Titas

If you like the cinematography of Andrei Tarkovsky films, that alone makes any Ritwik Ghatak film worth watching. I am ignorant to the political history this film is a parallel for (Bengal partition) so there were quite a few character motivations that baffled me (I also think this film now holds claim to the meanest mother I've ever seen as well). Will be rewatching this. Great performances across the board, loved the music, and to reiterate, the cinematography is great.

 

Dry Summer

I fucking loved this movie. Its politics are obvious but they don't beat you over the head with it and still present a thoroughly entertaining story. The Osman character is Bluto from Popeye in the flesh, perfect casting! Even though the stories are different, I keep comparing this to Wages of Fear for the entertainment value. With one major warning:

Spoiler

There are two real and graphic (one especially so) scenes of animals being killed in this film. Neither do really anything to advance the story, but they're also not critical plot points either. So yeah, if that is a dealbreaker, don't watch this movie.

 

[iococoi]

The Last Stand (2013)

www.imdb.com/title/tt1549920

... had to stop after 7 minutos - unwatchable. can not believe the dir. did 'saw the devil' and 'a bittersweet life'

[Squee]

Why do people like Hamilton?

[prdctvsm]

terminators 1 & 2 b2b , /10.

[Enthusiast]

Watched this last night and loved it.

[Alcofribas]

ok so i watched tenet, i'll just put this in spoilers

 

Spoiler

nolan has this issue where he uses a complex intellectual premise that he tries to offset with an emotional story. say what you will about interstellar, but at least in that film the loving bond between father and daughter was established and it made sense how that love linked the science to the characters. tenet was a laughable failure here - the protagonist is in a position to save the world but nolan gives him an absurd secondary motivation which is to do everything in his power in the middle of this world-saving mission to save a woman and her son who he literally does not know. they have one single dinner and then the rest of the movie his primary motivation is to save her. lmao. i can see how this might have seemed like it would be "the heart" of the movie, like this guy is motivated not just by some abstract heroism but by his love for this woman. but yeah, they're basically strangers and the insanely high stakes of the film make it really dumb that he's always taking risks to help her when these risks could mean fucking up a mission to save all life that has ever existed. i thought there is the possibility that this kid is robert pattinson (?) but the whole thing is so under-developed that it's basically just people walking around explaining their motivations to the audience rather than showing them through, like, a film. so even if the kid turns out to be his best friend the problem is we only know they are best friends because at the very end of the movie pattinson is like "oh yeah lol we're best friends."

thus far i've given nolan the benefit of the doubt here and when he doesn't quite pull off this connection between logic puzzle premise and emotional story i still applaud him for trying this in such a grand way. but tenet was a total failure in this regard, he didn't even try to make the story feel real - it was all just mind-fuck premise with the story being filled in by exposition. it was fun at times but overall a real dud.

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Alcofribas

[Squee]

Nolan saved cinema. We're saved!

[Alcofribas]

nolan reversed the pandemic

[Roo]

Best new2me viewings from 2020

[Guest]

On 1/1/2021 at 3:29 AM, prdctvsm said:

terminators 1 & 2 b2b , /10.

watched T2 last night have not seen it in so long. Its the only movie besides McCabe and Mrs. Miller that can still make me cry. Does this mean I am soft?

[Danny O Flannagin]

Checked out the Coen's 2004 remake of The Ladykillers. Really enjoyed this one and not quite sure why it seems written off. Performances were great and art design was on point. Never a wasted moment as far as I can tell.

Going to rewatch this again soon. 

[iococoi]

On 1/1/2021 at 8:40 PM, Alcofribas said:

nolan reversed the pandemic

[ambermonk]

Just watched Inland Empire for the first time. I was expecting it to be more terrifying. Not as much scary as it was surreal.

I didn't fully understand what was going on, but from what I hear it's one of those films that needs to be viewed repeatedly to be properly digested. Interesting to see Terry Crews make a cameo though.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Danny O Flannagin said:

Checked out the Coen's 2004 remake of The Ladykillers. Really enjoyed this one and not quite sure why it seems written off. Performances were great and art design was on point. Never a wasted moment as far as I can tell.

Going to rewatch this again soon. 

This is interesting. I have not seen it but want to check it out now. I watched Intolerable Cruelty and the Hudsucker Proxy last year and enjoyed them both but when I read the wikipedia page for them it seemed like a lot of critics and people wrote those off as well.

[IDEM]

1 hour ago, bupkis said:

This is interesting. I have not seen it but want to check it out now. I watched Intolerable Cruelty and the Hudsucker Proxy last year and enjoyed them both but when I read the wikipedia page for them it seemed like a lot of critics and people wrote those off as well.

Sacrilege (not from you but the critics). The Hudsucker Proxy was one of my favorite films for years after it came out, even though I haven't seen it in quite a while. It's whimsical in the best sense of the word, and it looks gorgeous as well. Wonderful little flick IMHO.

[perunamuusi]

Hudsucker Proxy is one of the Coen's best imho. 

And is anyone genuinely surprised that Tenet is a bad film? Did you not see Inception?