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[Akahige]

Trainwreck (2015) - Hilarious dialogue and character interactions, Amy and Bill are very good as the leads. The story is honestly not great and by the end of the movie I was thinking why isn't this over yet, the movie could have had easily cut 10 minutes cut off the runtime in a few different spots which it seems they did already in a short time before the release since the editing is iffy in a few spots. The celebrity cameos became excessive by the end, Lebron is pretty awkward and flat,

Spoiler

the intervention scene with cameos didn't work at all for me.

I rewatch some Abbott and Costello movies with my dad:

Hold That Ghost (1941)
Who Done It? (1942)
Pardon My Sarong (1942)
Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942)

All basically the same damn movie in a different location and very slightly different gags but I don't care, it still gets the same amount of laughs out of me over and over again.

Lets see Top 5 New Watches of July:

1. Trainwreck (2015)
2. The Hunt for Red October (1990)
3. Buffalo Soldiers (2001)
4. Ant-Man (2015)
5. Faults (2014)

And Why Not Top 1 Rewatch Because It's a Modern Classic:


Hot Rod (2007)

 

[Lafiel]

Watched Good Will Hunting for the first time and honestly as a stuck-up self-aware pseudo-intellectual uni student a lot of the film personally resonated with me but I can't help while there is a lot of strength in a number of the films individual moments, ultimately the film falters when it comes to broader picture because of how safe and predictable it's execution is. I also find it unbelievable how despite dealing with the issues of class/underprivilege and childhood trauma the former is never presented as a serious barrier to the protagonist and his overall journey/healing process.

 

[Currygan]

Pixels is one of those movies where I have to wonder why the fuck anybody cares that it's bad? Who the hell didn't expect it to be bad? It's like going to a Michael Bay movie and marveling that there might be a few things wrong with it.

heh, indeed, but then again if you gotta review the movie you gotta bring up the reasons why it sucks. it's a bit useless, but it's got to be done

 

[Lord Virgin]

Well, here we go.


1. What's your favorite Movie? 

Ask me next year and it will probably be BvS. But as of now: Interstellar and Drive (sorry, can't make a choice)

2. Who's your favorite director?

Nolan. Love all of his films. Every single one.

3. Who are your favorite actors/actresses? 

Male: Gary Oldman and Ryan Gosling.

Female: Michelle Williams.

4. Favorite Genre(s)?

Thriller, mystery and drama.

5. What's your favorite performance in film?

Has to be Gosling in Drive.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

a real human being, and a real hero

 

[Divius]

TOP 5 NEW VIEWINGS OF JULY
5. Ame agaru - After the Rain
4. To Have and To Have Not
3. Stand By Me
2. Que la bête meure - The Beast Must Die
1. Le genou de Claire - Claire's Knee
0.

Spoiler

Mad Men season 7

BEST REWATCH
Xian si jue - Duel to the Death

WORST REWATCH
Blackhat

MOST DISAPPOINTING ALTHOUGH I KINDA EXPECTED IT TO DISAPPOINT ANYWAY
Jurassic World
Spy

August has started out just fine for me as I saw Zatôichi yesterday which was great and tons of fun.

 

[phoenixyz]

Top 5 of July (I have only seen 8 movies, but oh well):

1. 12 Angry Men
2. 21 Grams
3. Lucky Number Slevin
4. Babel
5. Amores Perros

 

[Apt101]

Birdman. I didn't know anything about it aside from that the critics loved it. Really fucking great.

 

[karasu]

Enter the Void: I love the bizarre and worship at the feet of the surreal but i couldn't wait for this fucking thing to end. I was hoping for cerebral coitus but in the end my lust was left shrunken and unsated.

A Trip to the Moon: There is something utterly amazing about watching people who lived over a century ago. when this movie was made Mahler and Debussy were still on the stage. Fucking crazy.

Holy Motors: Absolute magic

There will be Blood: Perfect in every way. Evocative, moving, surprising, and a perfect fucking use of Brahms.

 

[UrbanRats]

Enter the Void: I love the bizarre and worship at the feet of the surreal but i couldn't wait for this fucking thing to end. I was hoping for cerebral coitus but in the end my lust was left shrunken and unsated.

Couldn't disagree more.
One of the movies that stuck with me the most, in recent years.

 

[karasu]

I tried to like it. I was into the first 40 minutes or so. But then it kept running.

 

[Toothless]

Pixels was actually okay after all?

Pixels was actually pretty funny in a stupid Zoolander kinda of way. Sandler and Monaghan were pretty blah but everyone else in it (including Kevin James, surprisingly) seemed to be having fun and it showed. Dinklage and Gad both gave me a couple of big laughs.

I thought Ant-Man was just okay in comparison. Minions was shit.

 

[Death Metalist]

'
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum."

A drifter by the name of Nada(Roddy Piper) stumbles upon a box full of sunglasses that makes him see what the world really looks like and let me tell you, it ain't pretty. This one is a rewatch in memory of Roddy and yeah, I still love this movie. Easily in the top 3 of my favorite Carpenter movies ever (The other two being The Thing & Escape from New York). The only thing I disliked is that I felt the movie took too long to get to where it wanted but I guess it's meant to make us feel like a drifter wondering around, once he gets the sunglasses though it kicks into high gear and pretty much moves forward until the very end. Great ending, fantastic score and was way ahead of it's time in terms of it's message in how it combines the satire being all about modern society's unwitting slavery under everything from consumerism to politics with a unique Scifi/horror twist to it. Highly recommended.

 

[Fancy Clown]

I love how the "Obey" imagery, a harsh satire of consumer culture, of They Live has been thoroughly co-opted by the consumer culture of today, plastered all over t-shirts and flat-brims. I wouldn't be surprised if the aliens actually are running shit. Obey indeed.

 

[Hoagmaster]

Top 5 of July:
1. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
2. Godzilla (2014)
3. Mission: Impossible
4. Ant-Man
5. Terminator: Genisys

 

[Divius]

Enter the Void: I love the bizarre and worship at the feet of the surreal but i couldn't wait for this fucking thing to end. I was hoping for cerebral coitus but in the end my lust was left shrunken and unsated.

Saw this in a small theater, there were like 15 people watching, when it was done there were 4 people left.

 

[UrbanRats]

Saw this in a small theater, there were like 15 people watching, when it was done there were 4 people left.

The other 11 entered the void.

 

[Fancy Clown]

Enter the Void has some cool stuff in it, but it's too damn artsy-craftsy jacksy-offsy for its own good.

 

[Lumpy Onion]

Saw this in a small theater, there were like 15 people watching, when it was done there were 4 people left.

Yup. I freaking loved the movie but would totally understand their choice for leaving. Noe's movies certainly ain't for everyone. I wonder what the in-theater reaction to Irreversible would have been like at the time.

 

[Currygan]

gotta start a Tarantino rewatch tonight to see if his movies still hold up, first is going to be Inglourious Basterds since Ive watched it only once as opposed to Jackie Brown or Pulp Fiction. Django is gonna be next. I"ll avoid Kill Bill because honestly I find them both mediocre

 

[BaronLundi]

TOP 5 NEW VIEWINGS OF JULY
2. Que la bête meure - The Beast Must Die

One of the best from Chabrol. And Jean Yanne is awesome. Have you seen "Le Boucher"?

 

[Divius]

One of the best from Chabrol. And Jean Yanne is awesome. Have you seen "Le Boucher"?

Non, but it and La cérémonie are now in my backlog.

 

[maxcriden]

Pixels was actually pretty funny in a stupid Zoolander kinda of way. Sandler and Monaghan were pretty blah but everyone else in it (including Kevin James, surprisingly) seemed to be having fun and it showed. Dinklage and Gad both gave me a couple of big laughs.

I thought Ant-Man was just okay in comparison. Minions was shit.

Glad to hear it. I'm good with funny in a dumb way. (Though I do think Zoolander is an exceptionally clever movie, personally.) Glad you agree Minions was disappointingly awful.

Haha guess we don't agree here since I hated Iron Man 3, which was a big dissapoinment since I'm a fan of Shane Black. TWS was actually quite good for the first half I thought, but then it pissed it all away and became a cookie cutter, safe marvel movie in the second half. GOTG might be my favorite Marvel movie I guess, even though it had a boring ass antagonist. I liked RDJ in Iron Man, but didn't like much else, and I liked the concept of the first Captain America but it felt kinda dull and odly paced. I think Chris Evans is my favorite Marvel lead though.

Oh, just realized I didn't reply to this. Yeah, we do agree on TWS for the most part from the sound of it. So we've got that in common for Marvel movies.

Surprised by the universal dislike for IM3. I thought that was a really solid and different sort of blockbuster movie.

 

[Ridley327]

Despite the necessary deviations from the source text, I felt like Throne of Blood was one of the best adaptations of Macbeth out there. I loved the atmosphere that Kurosawa was going for, where everything seems ever so slightly off to keep the viewer on edge throughout, even if they're already versed in the original play. The finale is one of the most mind-bogglingly reckless yet impressive things that has ever been committed in the name of art, but huge props are due for Toshiro Mifune for performing so well under such dangerous conditions and having it fit right in with the rest of his performance.



So it's August, and I wanted to do something a little bit different. I essentially closed out my two month-long Japanese viewing spree with a glimpse of what I wanted to do, in that I wanted to focus on a specific filmmaker for a week or two, in an attempt to better verse myself in their works while trying to gain a new perspective on what I had already seen. For the most part, I won't be trying to see absolutely everything that they've ever put out, but the first one on deck is a special exception, since his output's influence betrays the relative lack of quantity (and one that fits well within the span of 14 days, I should add). It might be tough with the average runtime exceeding two hours (with a couple of three-hour monsters to tackle), but if any filmmaker deserves my undivided attention for two weeks, it is none other than Stanley Kubrick! I've got access to all of the feature films he's done, so it's finally time to give the man some respect beyond the ones everyone already love dearly.

 

[maxcriden]

Ridley, what was that Japanese movie you were recommending not too long ago? Ah, man. I can't remember *anything* about it at the moment. Something modern...offbeat...charming. Sorry. It was in the last couple of months. I think this was you. I realize I'm not giving you much to go on; I thought I wrote it down but now I can't find it. Thank you.

ごめんなさい.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Throne of Blood

That death is embeded in my brain.

 

[Ridley327]

Ridley, what was that Japanese movie you were recommending not too long ago? Ah, man. I can't remember *anything* about it at the moment. Something modern...offbeat...charming. Sorry. It was in the last couple of months. I think this was you. I realize I'm not giving you much to go on; I thought I wrote it down but now I can't find it. Thank you.

ごめんなさい.

Modern? It might have been Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards.

That death is embeded in my brain.

It's funny: I can see the edit for the killing blow, but it's such a clean edit that I would wonder if Toshiro Mifune hadn't been murdered on camera for our amusement if I hadn't already seen him in so many films over the past two months that were released after that one. Kurosawa's editing game is truly unreal at times.

 

[maxcriden]

Modern? It might have been Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards

Nah, it...it definitely wasn't that. Hmm. Maybe it was someone else who posted it, but I really thought it was you. Ah, well. Thanks anyway.

 

[bengraven]

Shaolin (2011) - the first 1/3 is basically Game of Thrones China. Not knowing any of the actors except for small parts in other Chinese films I've seen and knowing only the short sentence that Netflix gives you for description, I was a bit shocked to how things got together. But then it became a great film and worth a watch.

Spoiler

Though it feels like 95% of the cast dies. I think the one thing I've learned from Chinese dramas is that every hero must die so that some minor character or villain can learn a lesson.

My wife asked me to describe it and I said "it's like what would happen if Moff Tarkin is betrayed by Vader and joins the Jedi and then uses his new skills to help his friends in the Rebellion fight back against Darth. Luke, Leia, Han die and then Obi-wan is the last to die just before Tarkin dies but not before Vader feels some regret for what he did and walks away sadly. And it ends with Chewie walking away with all the C-level characters.

King of Beggars - loved it. I think I liked this almost better than Shaolin Soccer, but not just quite. Also, between this, KFH, SS, and Journey to the West, I'm convinced Stephen Chow has a black book of the hottest Chinese girls to put in his movies. I also swore while watching it that it was another directing and writing job, but apparently Chow was just an actor.

 

[Fancy Clown]

Oh, just realized I didn't reply to this. Yeah, we do agree on TWS for the most part from the sound of it. So we've got that in common for Marvel movies.

Surprised by the universal dislike for IM3. I thought that was a really solid and different sort of blockbuster movie.

I dunno, apart from the twist it felt kinda standard to me. The PTSD angle didn't really feel that fleshed out, and was mostly there to capitalize on the shared universe connection with The Avengers. I like the idea behind it, but they didn't take it far enough and it was pushed to the back burner in favor of Tony playing babysitter while fighting weird exploding men.

Despite the necessary deviations from the source text, I felt like Throne of Blood was one of the best adaptations of Macbeth out there. I loved the atmosphere that Kurosawa was going for, where everything seems ever so slightly off to keep the viewer on edge throughout, even if they're already versed in the original play. The finale is one of the most mind-bogglingly reckless yet impressive things that has ever been committed in the name of art, but huge props are due for Toshiro Mifune for performing so well under such dangerous conditions and having it fit right in with the rest of his performance.



So it's August, and I wanted to do something a little bit different. I essentially closed out my two month-long Japanese viewing spree with a glimpse of what I wanted to do, in that I wanted to focus on a specific filmmaker for a week or two, in an attempt to better verse myself in their works while trying to gain a new perspective on what I had already seen. For the most part, I won't be trying to see absolutely everything that they've ever put out, but the first one on deck is a special exception, since his output's influence betrays the relative lack of quantity (and one that fits well within the span of 14 days, I should add). It might be tough with the average runtime exceeding two hours (with a couple of three-hour monsters to tackle), but if any filmmaker deserves my undivided attention for two weeks, it is none other than Stanley Kubrick! I've got access to all of the feature films he's done, so it's finally time to give the man some respect beyond the ones everyone already love dearly.

Throne of Blood is next on my Kurosawa watch list after High and Low comes in the mail. Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play, and one that surprisingly hasn't been adapted to film all that many times compared to stuff like Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. I really love Polanski's version, it's so damn dour and haunting, and I'm stoked for the Fassbender version coming up.

Enjoy your Kubrick marathon! That should be good stuff, I still need to get around to his earlier stuff like The Killing and Paths of Glory.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Minions. Saw it with niece. About as good as Despicable Me, so not even a giggle. Expected as much though. 4/10

Also, it's like this movie had a severe case of ADD.

 

[koopathecat]

Just had to sit thru Southpaw with my SO. Dunno if im the the minority here but i found it to be a poor mans Rocky and instantly forgetable. I get boyfriend points for taking her to see it tho

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. After some comments I've been seeing about it around here, I was sort of expecting it to be less enjoyable. I agree with JC about Cruise's commitment and I appreciate the physical work that goes into these movies. Rebecca Ferguson was my favorite. The girl was charismatic. There are a lot of weaknesses, the ending was a little rushed, and I'm not sure how it will live up to rewatches, but as of right now, I liked it. 6/10

It also gains points for having a villain as opposed to the last one

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Solomon Lane's jacket near the end gotta be in the top 3 jackets in movies this year, behind Fury Road's Mad Max and Slow West's Ben Mendelsohn

 

[Nuke Soda]

Saw Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. It was okay. Had some fun action, but a really stupid plot with a villain that is not as smart as the movie wants you to think. The movie relied on plot and action over character, which as I said the action was fun, the plot was not. This is far from a bad movie, but it is also far from Mad Max: Fury Road.

I just had to go and drop that movies name, didn't I?

 

[Ridley327]

Stanley Kubrick perhaps said the most accurate thing that one could possibly say about his debut feature film, Fear and Desire, in which he likened it to a child's drawing on a refrigerator. It does feel at times that it hardly hints at the mastery of the medium that he would be so proud to claim later, feeling much like a student art film that got a little too bold for its tiny budget to support. The film's visual styling owes much to the era of silent films, particularly in the frequent use of closeup on the faces of all the actors, and Kubrick shoots and edits them without much regard for continuity, where profiles often change lighting entirely between edits, and there's a sense that Kubrick is only just getting used to the idea of editing being an important storytelling tool, as there are moments where the cuts are so frequent and yet so inconsequentially minor that it can feel disorienting as the scene cuts between the actors in relation to one another and in isolation. But even if the film was in the hands of a more technically mature filmmaker, it would still be hard to overcome the film's biggest culprit in the script, which is a minefield of pseudo-philosophical mumblings that feels both ponderous and painful, with each actor having their own voice-over take on What It's All About. There wasn't a single monologue that didn't feel like an actor was struggling to not give up halfway through the reading, and since the film has a lot of monologues, I can only imagine that the lot of them was praying for mercy in the ADR sessions. Like any kid's drawing on a fridge, though, there is always a hint at some deeper, innate quality that can manifest itself with the proper motivation, and there does exist quite a bit of that in the film. It is unsurprisingly photographed well throughout, and even though the editing is inconsistent in the overall presentation, a lot of shots work quite well in isolation, and Kubrick does manage to stage a couple of impressive sequences together, particularly a nightmarish attack on a small home occupied by enemy soldiers and a visually compelling recasting of two of the actors of our heroes as the enemy general and captain, which works in spite of the general's monologue presenting perhaps the nadir of the film. Kubrick had originally planned to release the film as a silent feature, and one has to wonder if some of the film's issues would go away if it had come to pass, but overall, Kubrick's little fridge drawing isn't lacking in merit or ambition: it needed more discipline and maturation. Those aren't qualities that you wouldn't ordinarily obtain right away, so it's hard for me to knock on Kubrick too hard for that. That being said, I will certainly praise him for making this just barely over an hour long, because I don't think anyone would be able to take that much more of it than what they already had to watch. This is about strong a definition of a noble failure that I can think of.

 

[karasu]

Woman in the Moon: An old Fritz Lang silent movie. It was a great experience all around with striking imagery and a fantastic score.

 

[lazybones18]

Mr. Holmes

Finally decided to give this a look. It was actually pretty good. McKellan was great, and so was the child actor in the movie.

 

[kopitarrulez_11]

I love how the "Obey" imagery, a harsh satire of consumer culture, of They Live has been thoroughly co-opted by the consumer culture of today, plastered all over t-shirts and flat-brims. I wouldn't be surprised if the aliens actually are running shit. Obey indeed.

its a bummer douchey skateboarders wear it though

 

[kurisu1974]

July Top-5

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Suna no onna (Woman in the Dunes) (1964)
Mandariinid (Tangerines) (2013)
Far From the Madding Crowd (2015)
The Last Wave (1977)

Watched A Bittersweet Life yesterday, and felt a bit let down by all the praise, feels like I have seen much better Korean crime movies already. Action scenes looked slick but the film didn't pull me in.

Also tried my hand at Cassavetes with A Woman under the Influence. A meaty movie, with lots to consider, and very unlikeable characters. I have a hard time deciding if I actually liked this, and how much, but at least I think it's worth pondering over.

 

[karasu]

Metropolis: A complete and total eyegasm. It's like Blade Runner of the 1920's complete with sociocultural commentary punctuated with rich imagery.

 

[BaronLundi]

Watched A Bittersweet Life yesterday, and felt a bit let down by all the praise, feels like I have seen much better Korean crime movies already. Action scenes looked slick but the film didn't pull me in.

I was disappointed as well. And it started really great too.

I keep being disappointed by Korean "crime" movies though. I Saw the Devil was complete trash. The Chaser and Yellow Sea were ok but I expected more.

Memories of Murder and Madeo (in what I will admit is actually a different genre) are still my favorites.

 

[Rogan]

White House Down

Not great, not bad. My kind of lazy, rainy sunday movie.

Just fun action movie with a predictable plot.

 

[kurisu1974]

I was disappointed as well. And it started really great too.

I keep being disappointed by Korean "crime" movies though. I Saw the Devil was complete trash. The Chaser and Yellow Sea were ok but I expected more.

Memories of Murder and Madeo (in what I will admit is actually a different genre) are still my favorites.

Memories of Murder is one of my favorites too; Chaser is also good, also The Man from Nowhere. And Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy.

 

[UrbanRats]

I just had to go and drop that movies name, didn't I?

As i said before, Fury Road fans are like Dark Souls fans.
-
Le Bossu (the 97 one) was on TV yesterday.
This was a film i really loved as a kid: The action, the hunchback, Marie Gillain... however i never realized back then, that at the end he's basically fucking his step daughter? That was really weird.

Largely due to nostalgia, but i still enjoyed it though.

 

[karasu]

Sunshine: I went into this one blind. What the hell was up with the third act?

 

[True Savior]

I was disappointed as well. And it started really great too.

I keep being disappointed by Korean "crime" movies though. I Saw the Devil was complete trash. The Chaser and Yellow Sea were ok but I expected more.

Memories of Murder and Madeo (in what I will admit is actually a different genre) are still my favorites.

I Saw the Devil content itself is somewhat trashy. But i dont see how one cannot appreciate the technique in it to label it as complete trash. It's a very well made movie.

 

[BaronLundi]

I Saw the Devil content itself is somewhat trashy. But i dont see how one cannot appreciate the technique in it to label it as complete trash. It's a very well made movie.

Well it's not really the content that I found objectionable. It's competently filmed (althoug not on the same level as Park Chan-wook let alone Joon-ho Bong) but the script is just awful. Found the result tediously over the top, repetitive, meaningless and most of all pretty boring. But yeah, "complete trash" might have been a somewhat slightly hyperbolic shortcut.

Kim Jee-woon is hit or miss for me. I liked A tale of two sisters and The good, the bad, the weird.

 

[Rogan]

Well it's not really the content that I found objectionable. It's compently filmed (althoug not on the same level as Park Chan-wook let alone Joon-ho Bong) but the script is just awful. Found the result tediously over the top, repetitive, meaningless and most of all pretty boring.

Kim Jee-woon is hit or miss for me. I liked A tale of two sisters and The good, the bad, the weird.

Awful script? Can you give some examples?

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

gotta start a Tarantino rewatch tonight to see if his movies still hold up, first is going to be Inglourious Basterds since Ive watched it only once as opposed to Jackie Brown or Pulp Fiction. Django is gonna be next. I"ll avoid Kill Bill because honestly I find them both mediocre

Spoiler: They still hold up.