The Last of the Mohicans 3.5/5 compassionate sort of side history, putting family over nations or tribes. so, the same central theme as the Fast and Furious franchise. Old Joy originally went 6/10 for this. I think I'd already tick it up some. Reichardt starts the movie off with a soon-to-be father failing to meditate, but the following experience is excellently calming. The lush photography and ambient pacing (not meanderingly so howeverthere is a plot here, however lightly applied it is) embed so the ideas of longtime male friendships being more closed-off and limited than almost any other relationship, comparable to political divides, really course through you. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives 8/10 No Syndromes and a Century, but what is. Singular and serene. Striking in its acknowledgment of its own failure to capture the essence of everything, because that would be impossible. This is just a movie, these are just images, and we are just people. Somewhere 5/10 compelling when daughter Cleo is around and the film can explore Johnny's voracious sexuality grating against his having a growing daughter, or how his feeling the weight of the spotlight alters (or doesn't alter) her attitude. Her being around just breathes life into Johnny's character, the movie becomes less about him fixing his malaise than him realizing he's emptied in the first place. When she's not around,a nd occasionally when she is, Coppola's unfocused and unable to be incisive. oh really, celebrities can feel detached sometimes? tell me more. The Duke of Burgundy 9/10 might just be all it's cracked up to be. A love story in inverted words but familiar, heart-wrenching meanings. sure they're a sub/dom lesbian couple participating in regular watersports, but that can't stop this from being a tender romance. The luridness is there to strip you bare so their relationship troubles, their worries that they've grown apart or they will grow apart or they were never as close as they assumed to begin with, all hits the nerves even harder. Lushly photographed, confidently funny and surreal
the mannequins in the crowd! the fact that the crowd is all women and all study butterflies, seemingly the only type of person in this universe! the Mothlight homage! a dream sequence (or maybe not a dream?) taking place in the space between a character's thighs!
, and a much more convicted persuasive film than Berberian Sound Studio.
I watched that movie, loved it, then promptly showed it to a bunch of new friends early into college. they hated it and most never trusted me to recommend a movie again lmao.
There was an e-book all about Miracle Mile recently that I bought but I lost it in a hdd crash, I should try to find it again.
Starred Up was fucking intense. It works in most of the tropes of the prison genre, but it has a gritty realism to it and an interesting emotional/psychological angle with the father-son dynamic to keep things interesting and weighty. Ben Mendleson continues to be awesome, and Jack o'connell was excellent as well. Definitely one of my favorites of the year.
Branded to Kill is a personal top 5 of mine and you can easily write a thesis on it. I feel like for Go Go Second Time Virgin, you should watch some pink films and perhaps compare it to that but granted, Japan had a shit ton of art house pink films. I've never seen Go Go Second Time Virgin by the way but almost did tonight. Instead I watched two "ok" Ruiz films.
Nice, thanks. The paper isn't compare/contrast but rather pick two films we can link to talk about a broader movement, so I was gonna use those two because they were both commercial and, at the time, critical failures. One studio driven, and the other independent, but their extreme aesthetics and subject matter seem like they may have alienated the studios and their intended audiences and were representative of factors that led to the decline of the Japanese new wave....or at least I'll be interrogating that assumption to see if that actually was the case.
Yeah I agree, it would have been just some other story of a guy trying to get to the top, get famous whatever. It also made Simmons more threatening with such a small, insular society he could burn someone for life.
Yeah and that also played into the idea of magnifying relatively small things, to have them take over and control your life, so having it be about a relatively small niche culture, plays into the overall theme.
By his motivation you mean Teller's character, right? Of course whether something connects or not is gonna have an element of subjectivity, but personally i think the dinner scene, and his
sudden rejection of the girl he was seeing
, are more or less enough to set up the character and his obsession, as something of a simulacrum, rather than just a pure genuine interest.
I mean of course any passion that goes into unhealthy and self destructive territory, usually underlines more than just pure interest, that goes without saying, but the movie sets up the reasons for that repeatedly, and in a pretty straight forward manner, from the dad who couldn't achieve his dreams, to his lack of a social position in the family, to his ideal of intellectual superiority.
I get it but I never felt it. Simmons' character being a raging sociopath made me distance myself from the film emotionally, which would be okay if I had found the film intellectually stimulating.
Watched Wait until Spring, Bandini which probably is the Belgian film with the most street cred ever. Score by Angelo Badalamenti, starring Faye Dunaway and Ornella Muti, based on a John Fante novel, and endorsed by Francis Ford Coppolla.
Movie was not bad, especially the acting and even the child actors were great. I felt a bit let down by the somewhat simple plot, but man why haven't I seen more films with Ornella Muti. This needs to be remedied.
I just saw Inherent Vice for the first time. Give me like three or four more viewings and I'll have an actual comment on the plot. Looked amazing and loved Brolin probably more than any other character.
Nightcrawler was fucking amazing and two of the best hours I've ever spent in front of a screen. Loved it. Eerie, enchanting and wonderfully compelling. Thanks to everyone who recommended it because you chose an awesome film.
Gone Girl is next because that was the other film recommended to me. Shall report back.
The Sweet Smell of Success Absolutely floored me how ahead of its time this movie feels. The writing / dialogue is razor sharp, and there is some shit in this movie that would be seriously dark even by today's standards. I am not too familiar with Tony Curtis's work, but I know he was playing against type and it was an ingenious performance. Loved how gritty and authentic the look of the movie was too. The pace of the movie seems a lot faster than most movies I've seen of that era as well. 9 out of 10
Haha yeah something about the delivery on the "I wanna chastise you" line really cracked me up. Also love the "man with the ice cream face" bit cause it really works for Curtis.
I just saw Inherent Vice for the first time. Give me like three or four more viewings and I'll have an actual comment on the plot. Looked amazing and loved Brolin probably more than any other character.
This is funny because I'm constantly surprised at just how fast golden age Hollywood style movies move in comparison to a lot of stuff that came later. Noir is especially brisk. Endings came fast and furious.
I'd echo what net wrecker said and go even farther: screwball and noirs from long before 1957 had brisk paces, far speedier than basically anything that comes out today. And by the time Sweet Smell of Success was out, Italian neorealism had died and noir's reign was over, so it was more on the end of any wave of grit and realism than it was ahead of one
You know, after watching Turner I think Spall deserved to be nominated for the AA, and win, because he.is.perfect
Now I don't think I care anymore about this year's event; the Oscars have always been ridiculous, but I cannot accept they snubbed him (and Leigh), since Turner is also a fantastic movie
If for nothing else, The French Connection has the most satisfying unsatisfying ending ever. Gene Hackman played such a fantastic misanthrope that I can't imagine such a terrible thing happening to a more deserving bastard. My dad tells me the sequel has a much more professional look to it, but I don't think I'd want to trade away Friedkin's trademark documentary-style approach for anything, as it was flawless for this film.
Chef. Good comedy drama involving cooking and the culinary, uh, field? Scene? It was good, really well crafted for a small indie - no surprise since it was written and directed by Favreau. A lot of talent in it. A feel-good movie.
Thought it was a very entertaining and often frightening movie. Simmons and Teller were both great, Simmons character is probably one of the more memorable antagonists I've seen in a while. I like that
it ended pretty ambiguously. I mean, he killed it but I don't think one performance will necessarily win the judges over. I was glad the girl didn't take him back too, because I was worried she would. He was shit to her. The pursuit of this dream completely absorbed him. I will agree that the car accident was a bit extreme, but it led to one of the most stressful scenes in the movie.
You guys think Fletcher was a piece of shit? I would say that move he pulled at the end was reprehensible. Of course it was a direct parallel in what happened to that jazz musician in the story (the guy who threw a cymbal at his head while playing.
I feel like the car crash scene was specifically related to the previous scene where Fletcher had told the story about his previous student dying in the car crash. Andrew saw Fletcher cry over the loss of that kid. He wanted to show Fletcher that even a car crash wasn't going to stop him. He wanted to show that he was stronger/better than anyone else Fletcher had ever taught. I don't understand why people have a problem with the fact that a distracted, speeding driver ran through an intersection and got into a car wreck.
Of course he later finds out that Fletcher was lying about how the student died, but that's another discussion entirely.
I feel like the car crash scene was specifically related to the previous scene where Fletcher had told the story about his previous student dying in the car crash. Andrew saw Fletcher cry over the loss of that kid. He wanted to show Fletcher that even a car crash wasn't going to stop him. He wanted to show that he was stronger/better than anyone else Fletcher had ever taught. I don't understand why people have a problem with the fact that a distracted, speeding driver ran through an intersection and got into a car wreck.
Of course he later finds out that Fletcher was lying about how the student died, but that's another discussion entirely.
Paycheck (or Paycheque) - John Woo's over-the-top directing made the movie seem older than it is, and also made it unnecessarily cheesy. It was something relatively mindless to watch and wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good either.
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Fun movie, I guess in a similar vein to Kick-Ass but I liked this way more. Cool fight scenes although a little too sped up. Thought Vaughn did a pretty good job balancing the right tone here, although honestly I thought a lot of the overt awareness of spy movie tropes was kind of unnecessary; think I would have liked it more if it had just played those tropes straight instead of going "...just like the old Bond movies, huh? wink wink."
Mark Hamill in Joker voice mode
was a fun cameo. And I was surprised how much I liked Taron Egerton, given how annoying his character comes off in the trailer. Wish he had been cast as Cyclops now, and he sure as hell looks like a younger James Marsden. Anyway, I liked it.
I keep seeing posts about people being let down by the ending or that it's ambiguous. I don't understand, it seems pretty clear to me. In the end he wins the approval of Teller, which is what he was working for the whole movie. Also unless you meant "judges" in the wider sense, I don't believe the final performance was a competition.
I saw Black Sea last night and the plot instantly reminded me of the classic film Wages of Fear. There's this microcosm of the ugly nature of capitalism and devaluation of hard labor contained that could have potentially served as a perfect allegory for the degradation of the modern American dream. However, the characters are written in such a black and white manner that it mars the potential complexities of the seemingly otherwise well-nuanced plot. It establishes this brooding claustrophobic tension and culminates it with lackluster cheap thrills time and time again. The Black Sea simply hands the viewer too many easy outs. Oh and the poor CG really stood out because of it's closed focus cinematography.
I keep seeing posts about people being let down by the ending or that it's ambiguous. I don't understand, it seems pretty clear to me. In the end he wins the approval of Teller, which is what he was working for the whole movie. Also unless you meant "judges" in the wider sense, I don't believe the final performance was a competition.
It was a local jazz fest, but Fletcher did emphasize how many industry bigwigs could have been in attendance. That could have just been him putting the fear of god into Andy to help make damn sure that failing or succeeding here would be monumental, but there was hypothetically a lot at stake in terms of a potential career maker. In any event, that ending is about as perfect as you could get for that film: Fletcher may have finally got his Charlie Parker, and Andy made that son of a bitch finally respect him. Anything else was pure gravy.
I don't read the ending to Whiplash as optimistically as you all at all.
Maybe Andrew found some success there, but I didn't at all get the impression that Fletch truly respected him-- he was just happy he'd turned Andrew into another monster. While it's ambiguous whether any career arose from the performance, one thing seemed conclusive to me: they'd finally sunk to each others sociopathic level. hooray I guess.
Caught Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes) last night. Six one-liner shorts loosely linked thematically. only kind of funny, them being collected together doesn't spark anything special as they don't play off each other as much as they repeat each other, and the ideas they repeat aren't too novel. But the audience l o v e d it. Standing ovation, gigantic laughs (even at hacky prison rape jokes. cool), praise for the in-attendance Szifron as an original genius. so maybe others will like it a bunch more.
I don't read the ending to Whiplash as optimistically as you all at all.
Maybe Andrew found some success there, but I didn't at all get the impression that Fletch truly respected him-- he was just happy he'd turned Andrew into another monster. While it's ambiguous whether any career arose from the performance, one thing seemed conclusive to me: they'd finally sunk to each others sociopathic level. hooray I guess.
I dunno. With how he was throughout the rest of the film, I really couldn't imagine him doing something like
helping to readjust Andy's cymbal when it tipped over onto its kit during the solo if it was just because he didn't want to ruin the moment for himself. The way he acts throughout all of the solo just doesn't scream an easy answer like that.
I guess it depends on whether or not you see selfishness as an inherently bad trait for someone to have, or to even instill on someone else. I admit that my reading is based on a personal experience in my youth as a musician that I don't think fully clicked until this film, but I can't bring myself to see it like that. I'll go as far as purposefully ambiguous as to what happens next, but I can't cosign it to being "complete asshole finally finds someone willing to listen to him" and leaving it at that.
I think that's the point. It's unclear whether he truly was looking for the next great or if he was just a sociopath. It's all up to us to interpret it. I interpreted it as him being crazy but genuine about his desire to find the next great.
I dunno. With how he was throughout the rest of the film, I really couldn't imagine him doing something like
helping to readjust Andy's cymbal when it tipped over onto its kit during the solo if it was just because he didn't want to ruin the moment for himself. The way he acts throughout all of the solo just doesn't scream an easy answer like that.
I guess it depends on whether or not you see selfishness as an inherently bad trait for someone to have, or to even instill on someone else. I admit that my reading is based on a personal experience in my youth as a musician that I don't think fully clicked until this film, but I can't bring myself to see it like that. I'll go as far as purposefully ambiguous as to what happens next, but I can't cosign it to being "complete asshole finally finds someone willing to listen to him" and leaving it at that.
it doesn't have to do with good or bad, or evil, and him helping Andy is perfectly inline with the idea of him holding firmly the belief that you have to sacrifice everything to get to that level of purity, be it your personal life or other's.
This is obviously a theme running throughout the movie, but i think when it comes to Fletcher, he never got to reach that level himself, he's alone, probably because everyone around him got tired of his shit, he's an obsessed individual and he channeled his obsession in this passion of his for music and therefore deformed and mutated it into somewhat of a grotesque research for the (always out of reach) ideal of greatness and technical perfection.
From this point of view, i see him wanting to bring people in his own world, and when Andy does, it does make him genuinely happy, while also validating his whole life in the process.
it doesn't mean his interest or even obsession for Jazz is fabricated or even false, just bent out of shape by his deeper demons.
I think that's the point. It's unclear whether he truly was looking for the next great or if he was just a sociopath. It's all up to us to interpret it. I interpreted it as him being crazy but genuine about his desire to find the next great.
There's certainly an element of mental illness in his character, as well as an element of genuine passion for the craft, and both elements feed off of each other, both elements shape and deform each other.
Animation quality it'll be different to find many things on par, considering it took like 6 or 7 years to make.
As far as art style, i think Aeon Flux/Alexander the Conqueror/Animatrix's Peter Chung has a similar, bizarre style.
The users here helped me out with the awesome Nightcrawler recommendation so I'll help you out!
Enemy: Weird and surreal. Dark and gloomy. Watched the first five minutes and didn't like it that much but persevered because I'd read some glowing reviews. It's intriguing to a certain extent but the plot is an enigma. Nothing is ever explained. There's a "shocking" ending that's just bizarre. Overall I really didn't like it despite the love it gets.
The Guest:This is the film you should watch. It's fucking amazing. It's fascinating, compelling and has the most captivating and intense action ever. The lead actor is just superb. It's just so brilliant and mind bending by the end. It ranks as one of the best films I've seen over the last year and I would highly, highly recommend it.
The users here helped me out with the awesome Nightcrawler recommendation so I'll help you out!
Enemy: Weird and surreal. Dark and gloomy. Watched the first five minutes and didn't like it that much but persevered because I'd read some glowing reviews. It's intriguing to a certain extent but the plot is an enigma. Nothing is ever explained. There's a "shocking" ending that's just bizarre. Overall I really didn't like it despite the love it gets.
The Guest:This is the film you should watch. It's fucking amazing. It's fascinating, compelling and has the most captivating and intense action ever. The lead actor is just superb. It's just so brilliant and mind bending by the end. It ranks as one of the best films I've seen over the last year and I would highly, highly recommend it.
I just got around to watching Nightcrawler. I enjoyed it a lot. It's no Whiplash but it was a thrilling ride. I'm not sure if I bought into the major moment(s) that happened, but that's not really a good critique. I certainly recommend it.
it doesn't have to do with good or bad, or evil, and him helping Andy is perfectly inline with the idea of him holding firmly the belief that you have to sacrifice everything to get to that level of purity, be it your personal life or other's.
This is obviously a theme running throughout the movie, but i think when it comes to Fletcher, he never got to reach that level himself, he's alone, probably because everyone around him got tired of his shit, he's an obsessed individual and he channeled his obsession in this passion of his for music and therefore deformed and mutated it into somewhat of a grotesque research for the (always out of reach) ideal of greatness and technical perfection.
From this point of view, i see him wanting to bring people in his own world, and when Andy does, it does make him genuinely happy, while also validating his whole life in the process.
it doesn't mean his interest or even obsession for Jazz is fabricated or even false, just bent out of shape by his deeper demons.
Inherent Vice
Bold and experimental in its narrative but very dull. Not sure what to make of it really. Some of the stuff that worked in the book didn't translate too well on film. The acting and cinematography are sublime as ever so no quarrels there at least. The chocolate banana scene and Joaquin Phoenix face in the car was hilarious.
