|
Post by Miles Morales on Jan 18, 2020 9:01:27 GMT
1917 - 10/10
Even though I still prefer Parasite, I would be super happy if this will be the film that wins Best Picture. Such a riveting and emotionally moving experience.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Jan 18, 2020 10:52:50 GMT
Signs of Life (1969) - rewatch 9/10Werner Herzog's masterful first feature - it must have felt like a small bomb went off in filmmaking circles - and the director's vision and POV make other movies look trite and simpleminded. Filmed in austere black and white - this story of a soldier stationed on a Greek island with nothing to do but slowly see things less clearly with all that time on his hands, everything becomes less conducive to his "health". Each decision Herzog makes here is like a tiny protest against not merely films but life itself - the beautiful locale is oppressive and later threatening, nature is at best mundane or perverse - animals are either foolish conquests or metaphorically silly like Man even - the army has taught the soldier to impose their/his order upon ALL but not to ever challenge or rebel......so instead madness imposes itself on him. Essential viewing.
|
|
|
Post by Mattsby on Jan 19, 2020 1:40:06 GMT
Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes (1966) - a light 7/10. Godard let Jean Eustache use his leftover film stock to make this. Only 50 mins, it's a quick, gliding pic set right at Christmastime, about Jean-Pierre Léaud's character who's completely preoccupied with himself and his pursuits, getting girls and enough money to buy a duffle coat. He epitomizes ambling, empty ambition. There are some in-jokes - Léaud walking by a 400 Blows poster - and looking for a book called Cell 2455 which after looking it up is about a death row inmate and the book's tagline is "a condemned man's own story."
|
|
|
Post by theycallmemrfish on Jan 19, 2020 6:50:23 GMT
I've been saying for YEAAAARRRRRRSSSSSSSSSS that Cruise needs to work with Sorkin again. He had such a great command over his language, but I'll be waiting that reunion forever. But as for my last film, it was TDKR... and I still love the shit out of it. My favorite Batman flick.
|
|
|
Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jan 19, 2020 8:28:44 GMT
Panic Room
Decided to watch this on Netflix since it was the only Fincher film I hadn't seen yet and thought it was pretty decent. Some gaps in logic (like stuff hinging on the intruders' stupidity) and the CGI hasn't aged well, but it's tense and well-directed with some bravura sequences. Jared Leto is really fucking terrible in this though.
|
|
|
Post by mhynson27 on Jan 19, 2020 9:48:20 GMT
I've been saying for YEAAAARRRRRRSSSSSSSSSS that Cruise needs to work with Sorkin again. He had such a great command over his language, but I'll be waiting that reunion forever.
But as for my last film, it was TDKR... and I still love the shit out of it. My favorite Batman flick. Wholeheartedly agree. But with that last part, what makes it better than the other two in the trilogy for you?
|
|
Drish
Badass
Posts: 2,018
Likes: 1,753
|
Post by Drish on Jan 19, 2020 12:35:47 GMT
Cure - 8/10 I asked you guys to suggest some lighter movies on criterion but the first thing I watched was anything but that🤣 I really liked it. It played with some great ideas and executed them well though I wish we'd explored more about the killer or the relationship with the protagonist and his wife. But overall, it's a really good one.
Bala - 7.5/10 In a first of its kind, this movie will make you sympathize with a woman who divorces her husband because he's getting bald and presents such stupid idea with an unbelievable sensitivity. There's a dialogue in the movie where the woman says, "It might sound bullshit to you but all my life I've been thriving on my good looks, I'm not smart but I'm good looking and that's the only thing matters to me and that's the only thing I wanted in my husband." And somehow, these words doesn't sound stupid at all. Yami Gautam hands down steals the show and Ayushmann Khurana continues to be the most interesting young actor we have. A really funny movie about male pattern baldness and the insecurity they face albeit a bit exaggerated and preachy at times.
|
|
The-Havok
Badass
Doing pretty good so far
Posts: 1,155
Likes: 552
|
Post by The-Havok on Jan 19, 2020 19:20:02 GMT
The Aaron Hernández documentary. I could not believe it was so much better and engrossing than 1917
|
|
|
Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Jan 19, 2020 19:54:10 GMT
A bit of a 2019 horror / thriller catch-up today, with increasingly positive returns.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
A bit basic and reductive in terms of it's rolling in the mud of horror cliche and its attempts to say something political, but hey, at least it tried to say something. It was an entertaining yarn nonetheless, and it had a likable cast of characters. 6/10
The Prodigy
It could make a case for the feel bad film of the year, from what I've seen at least. So terribly dark, and almost completely devoid of any humour, dark or otherwise. It's a grim ninety minutes, but its also rather good. Jackson Robert Scott (little Georgie Denbrough) brings the scary in a way that the Pennywise of It: Chapter 2 could only dream of. 7/10
Crawl
Fantastically tense. When this film gets into gear it is a total blast right until the end. I expected good things, I got very good things. 8/10
|
|
|
Post by themoviesinner on Jan 19, 2020 20:27:40 GMT
Paterson (2016) - I loved this. It's a beautiful ode to all the simple things in life. And how you come to truly appreciate those things when there are people that love you earnestly, making you discover all the poetry that exists in everyday life and raise your creative spirit. A simple, tender, uplifting film. Truly great stuff. - 8.5/10
|
|
|
Post by Longtallsally on Jan 19, 2020 21:32:07 GMT
Shoeshine (1946) - 9/10
|
|
|
Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 20, 2020 1:37:52 GMT
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I kept wondering how much more I would have enjoyed this if Robert Downey Jr. wasn't in it.
|
|
|
Post by Longtallsally on Jan 20, 2020 22:16:51 GMT
1917
|
|
|
Post by quetee on Jan 21, 2020 3:10:56 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 21, 2020 5:20:50 GMT
Memoirs of a Geisha. Wow, I don't even know where to begin with this godawful mess. I won't waste too much time thrashing it because that was done plenty 15 years ago, but let's get something out of the way first: this is Dion Beebe's greatest visual achievement and he earned his Oscar. That being said, this is the kind of melodramatic culturally-appropriating Hollywood tripe that you'd have expected to see in the 50s and 60s. This is the soapy Hollywood Oscarbait-lite airplane movie version of geisha culture, staffed with Chinese actresses because American viewers (i.e. Oscar voters) are too ignorant to know the difference. I'm very glad this is behind me. 4/10
I also noticed that Zhang's snub for this must have been pretty significant as she was nominated for SAG, Globe, and BAFTA. The Academy really fuckin hates Asian women.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Jan 21, 2020 10:02:48 GMT
Fox and His Friends - 9/10 - re-watchOne of the best theatrical films Fassbinder ever made - it's bleak but utterly convincingly so, implicates all and does it so skillfully that when you re-visit you're shocked at all you missed initially. No one is spared here - not his straight "friends", gay "friends", certainly not himself either. Fassbinder's performance, at the center is one of the great auteur self-casting characterizations ever - taking on metaphorical weight here too - the sycophants around the great director using and ultimately discarding him too.
|
|
|
Post by Miles Morales on Jan 21, 2020 15:36:23 GMT
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - 8.5/10
Great fun but wayyyyyy stretched too thin. If it was 40 minutes shorter, it would've been a truly fantastic film. As it stands, it's currently my least favorite 2019 Best Picture nominee.
|
|
|
Post by Longtallsally on Jan 21, 2020 21:15:33 GMT
The New Girlfriend (2014) - 7/10
|
|
|
Post by countjohn on Jan 21, 2020 23:26:11 GMT
The Discreet Charm of the BourgeoisieExactly the kind of surrealism I like and a very good representation of my sense of humor. Excellent direction all around, never seen any Luis Bunuel before but I want to check out all his work now. An excellent skewer of upper and middle class people indifferent to anything except personal comfort. So many sequences were just so on the nose in the best way like all the people sitting down to eat the fake chicken. The dreams within dream thing will of course make a viewer think of Inception today, but here it shows the intrinsically farcical nature of that idea which is why I've always had a hard time taking Inception seriously. I almost never give these out but a 10/10 for me and possibly in like my top five of all time. 72 was a great year for movies between this and The Godfather.
|
|
|
Post by Viced on Jan 22, 2020 3:35:08 GMT
Wow... Kelly is one of the best noir(ish) female leads I've seen. From the remarkable opening scene to the badass dirty money scene... and being a lovely nurse for crippled children on top of all that. This was pretty wild and great overall... had no idea where it was going, but when it went there... holy shit. Some crazy good sequences here too... like the bizarre one with the children singing. And Constance Towers is fucking awesome... I gotta start watching General Hospital. 8/10
|
|
|
Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 22, 2020 8:10:12 GMT
the 3-hour cut of The New World, which is so, so beautiful. One of the most genuinely loving and awestruck films I've seen on this conflicting era of American history, and a deeply respectful meditation on what was lost to colonization. Would make a fantastic double-header with Last of the Mohicans but this should be watched last. Feels so final and complete. Loved it.
|
|
|
Post by themoviesinner on Jan 22, 2020 8:12:00 GMT
Bait (2019) - This is one of the most interesting films of the year, not so much because of it's story or themes, but mainly for the way those are presented. It is a very expressionistic work, as it is filmed in a grainy black and white and looks like something that would have come out in the silent era, but it is also edited in a way that disorients the viewer, since there is frequent cross-cutting between events that don't take place in the same time or location. But, at the same time, it opts for a very naturalistic approach as well, as it's extreme close-ups, scarce use of music and deadpan acting are very Bressonian in nature. It's as if the film strives for realism but, also, to be removed from it at the same time. It's approach to the events of it's story is pretty minimalistic as well. The characters only say the bare minimum it takes to be understood and everything is downplayed, even big emotional events, as if they're something small and insignificant. The story itself is an interesting study of the changes that tourism brings to the everyday life of a small fishing village, but the films greatest strength lies in it's unique approach to that story. Definitely among the best films of 2019. - 8/10 Also, a shoutout to pacinoyes for recommending it.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Jan 22, 2020 10:52:49 GMT
Deliverance (1972) - re-watch - 8/10There is no movie that sums up why today's "progressive" (Indiewire!) movie culture makes (far) lesser movies than your father's film culture. This movie (50 years old) - 4 white guys, with all the entitlement that comes with it, come across the poor (white again), commit murder and get away with it - so justice isn't served. Not only that but - male aggression in this piece (in an ugly way) - and it's in the sex - AND the amount of female characters and dialog is less than Robbie and Paquin in OUATIH and The Irishman. But Deliverance works because it doesn't pander to any broader cultural vision at all - it is so specific in what it's conveying and in how it is so unclear simultaneously - how quickly your life can descend on the basis of one event - a heart attack or illness, the death of a spouse, being a victim of crime etc. - how your world is built on a series of codified patterns. When disrupted the underpinnings collapse entirely. That's the point, everything else is mere details and the line that sums it all up is the Reynolds character - a living death wish - laying it out to Ronny Cox's Drew Ballinger - his reasonable, rationale friend - simply and clearly: "Where's the law Drew?"
|
|
avnermoriarti
Badass
Friends say I’ve changed. They’re right.
Posts: 2,390
Likes: 1,274
|
Post by avnermoriarti on Jan 22, 2020 18:09:42 GMT
Little Women '19
There's a scene, in which ( Oscar nominee ) Florence Pugh is taking a ride on a carriage with ( Oscar winner ) Meryl Streep and out of nowhere ( Oscar nominee ) Timothée Chalamet pops out, who still in love with ( Oscar nominee ) Saoirse Ronan, who's the daughter of ( Oscar nominee ) Laura Dern and....
|
|
|
Post by TerryMontana on Jan 22, 2020 20:36:36 GMT
Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
I don't know what to think about this movie. I expected something totally different (although I'm not sure what exactly). It started very interestingly, with Marianne trying to paint Heloise's portrait without her knowing, and ended up as a love story. Actually, it was supposed to be a love story right from the beginning but imo the painting sub-plot didn't help that much.
Fine movie with two great performances but nothing more than that.
Oh, I happen to know a little French (ok, maybe more than just a little) and realized that throughout the movie everybody was talking to everybody in plural form... A mother to her daughter, the daughter to her servant (!!), the two leads to one another!!!! What was that for? Only out of courtesy? A period thing???
6.5/10
|
|