CookiesNCream
Badass
So what else is new?
Posts: 1,064 
Likes: 478
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Post by CookiesNCream on Dec 26, 2020 8:09:17 GMT
I've caught A Christmas Story in a marathon and The Wizard of Oz. Two classic films!
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Post by Mattsby on Dec 26, 2020 20:04:28 GMT
Holiday Affair (1949) 7.5/10 rewatch. Charming all over, even the rushed questionable ending. Isobel Lennart (who bookended her career with Affairs of Martha and Funny Girl) wrote this and keeps it goingly funny.... Like the "I'm from California - never rains" long take or the girl at the park rollerblading on the ice bc her parents didn't get her skates. Mitchum taking this part apparently to ensure the studios he can win ya, sure does. And what a promo pic... 
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Drish
Badass
Posts: 2,036
Likes: 1,768
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Post by Drish on Dec 26, 2020 23:23:10 GMT
I really liked The Call, a fun, mindless Korean thriller with some amazing performances by both the lead actresses esp Jong-seo Jun. But it's one of those movies where the ending (more like the post credit scene)kinda ruins it for you. Ugh  Still, this is quite an entertainer. |
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Post by jakesully on Dec 27, 2020 23:05:59 GMT
Paddington 2 (re watch) I love Brendan Gleeson in this. Such a feel good film too.
solid 8/10
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Post by Mattsby on Dec 28, 2020 19:26:37 GMT
The Painted Bird - took a couple sitting but I got through this and kinda liked it. I understand why it's so divisive. Combine its grueling runtime with a voiceless protagonist with shocking depictions of violence that straddle the line of gratuitousness, several scenes of rape and child molestation, and a general lack of narrative direction (for most of the runtime these individual segments feel mostly random), and you have the perfect storm of a film that's bound to piss a lot of people off. That being said, a final act twist reframes most of the film's seemingly disconnected miseries really poignantly so it's worth waiting until the very end to make up your mind. And the cinematography is gorgeous and sweeping, rendering the savage war-torn existences of that world in starkly beautiful black and white. The film creates a really powerful and upsetting sense of place in which atrocities like those committed in the Holocaust seem merely inevitable. The film draws some really interesting implied parallels. Not an easy watch (although there are some excellent moments and strong performances), but a rewarding one, and not just because the cinematography alone is worth the price of admission. 7.5/10 Good review! Excellent review on Lbox too btw. I consider the book an all-timer, and having read it I knew how ugly it gets, still it shakes you to see it - this becomes a movie I can't really recommend to others bc of its constant often nasty brutality. Having said that: it's on Hulu for anyone interested! I'd say it threatens to be officially off-putting a few times but if you stick thru it, at the 2hr mark leading into the Barry Pepper scenes and all the way to the end, that 40ish minute stretch is at least an 8/10, almost masterful..... There's still the tough sit of what comes before it, which brings my rating down, even though the production is impressive (Shot over 16 months), a feast of faces and little details (like the violinist toy that plays no music, and stops too soon)... It's also as consistently extreme as it is terrifically shot, in B&W 35mm. Sean Baker on the visuals said "it's one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen." You could spend all day picking out the great shots... |
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 29, 2020 3:01:49 GMT
Sleep Tight (2011) - 8+/10 on TUBI Has anyone seen this - Mattsby , maybe?
Sort of like a Spanish The Stepfather or One Hour Photo but even better and more fully realized and an even better lead performance (not kidding) by Luis Tosar who resembles a balding Bobby Cannavale. Tosa gets two speeches here - one to his mother and one to an older lady that are Mamet-level stuff and this movie has the same sort of should I be enjoying this (?) pull as The Talented Mr. Ripley and things like that. Very much in debt to Hitchcock, with only a couple of inconsistencies which could maybe be explained by saying they are just transition jumps from scene to scene and are not meant to actually be "in real time" (?) and some improbabilities but that comes with the territory anyway. Regardless.......this is pretty much a knockout........and I can't believe this does not have a US remake........ 
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Post by Mattsby on Dec 29, 2020 3:31:32 GMT
Sleep Tight (2011) - 8+/10 on TUBI Has anyone seen this - Mattsby , maybe?
Sort of like a Spanish The Stepfather or One Hour Photo but even better and more fully realized and an even better lead performance (not kidding) by Luis Tosa who resembles a balding Babby Cannavale. Tosa gets two speeches here - one to his mother and one to an older lady that are Mamet-level stuff and this movie has the same sort of should I be enjoying this (?) pull as The Talented Mr. Ripley and things like that. Very much in debt to Hitchcock, with only a couple of inconsistencies which could maybe be explained by saying they are just transition jumps from scene to scene and are not meant to actually be "in real time" (?) and some improbabilities but that comes with the territory anyway. Regardless.......this is pretty much a knockout........and I can't believe this does not have a US remake........ Yes! Love it... The director did To Let, REC, and this consecutively which shows he can adapt differently to the genre (hasn’t done much since I don’t think?) and here his directing is at its slickest. I think Joel Edgerton slightly stole the ending twist for The Gift |
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Dec 29, 2020 4:51:06 GMT
Good review! Excellent review on Lbox too btw. I consider the book an all-timer, and having read it I knew how ugly it gets, still it shakes you to see it - this becomes a movie I can't really recommend to others bc of its constant often nasty brutality. Having said that: it's on Hulu for anyone interested! I'd say it threatens to be officially off-putting a few times but if you stick thru it, at the 2hr mark leading into the Barry Pepper scenes and all the way to the end, that 40ish minute stretch is at least an 8/10, almost masterful..... There's still the tough sit of what comes before it, which brings my rating down, even though the production is impressive (Shot over 16 months), a feast of faces and little details (like the violinist toy that plays no music, and stops too soon)... It's also as consistently extreme as it is terrifically shot, in B&W 35mm. Sean Baker on the visuals said "it's one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen." You could spend all day picking out the great shots... Why thank you  It was certainly a grueling and provocative watch. I think what makes it difficult isn't so much the brutality but the randomness of the brutality. It really starts to wear you down, the fact that the violence in most of these segments is essentially interchangeable but that the segments themselves feel fractured and episodic. But also that's what makes the film stand out among its kind I think, that it makes brutality so commonplace and universal. It's one of the most assaultive films about the devastation of war this side of Come and See and the twist element (I wonder if I even need to be coy about the reveal anymore) adds an entirely different and shattering dimension to the carnage. Those final minutes were really powerful. Baker's not lying about the cinematography. I'll never forget that image of the naked cossack carrying off his female victim on horseback. Seared into my brain. Gorgeous and repugnant at the same time. Vladimir Smutney mentioned in a Variety interview that he was partially inspired by Markéta Lazarova and it definitely shows. I wonder if Criterion picks it up at some point... |
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Post by TerryMontana on Dec 29, 2020 14:26:46 GMT
 It was a re-watch after about 10-15 years so I won't bother to rate it. I'm only going to say it's an awfully underrated movie imo. A fine suspence thriller, not very scary although Fats was haunting!! And what an amazing performance by Hopkins! I'm pretty sure some of the mannerisms he used here, he also used to play Lecter. Even Fats' voice, up to a point. |
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Post by MsMovieStar on Dec 29, 2020 22:00:10 GMT
 The Stoning of Soraya M (2008)
Oh honeys, shocking, brutal, I cried at the end (although I had to fast forward the stoning which looked quite graphic as I hate violence). They type of movie you never forget. 8/10 |
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 29, 2020 22:38:41 GMT
A Wolf At The Door (2013) - 8/10 ..........on TUBIAnother one I have to ask - anybody see this? Mattsby again? This Brazilian movie with a stunning, and charged performance by Leandra Leal completely flips the narrative by having 2 shocking scenes that are ALWAYS excluded in films for fear of losing the audience. These 2 scenes take what has up until then been a sexually provocative crime procedural and turn it into a complex and wrenching, completely unexpected tale that is like a punch to the gut. It also changes the meaning or implications of the title too. Quite the fakeout.....and quite a ballsy movie. 
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Post by Mattsby on Dec 29, 2020 22:48:00 GMT
A Wolf At The Door (2013) - 8/10 ..........on TUBIAnother one I have to ask - anybody see this? Mattsby again? Never seen or heard of it! Looks good. I thought for a second it was the Big Bad Wolves movie also from 2013, similar plots, that one is Israeli... |
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Post by jakesully on Dec 30, 2020 1:00:47 GMT
Unhinged - Finally got around to watching this and Crowe was born to play this role haha 
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Post by wilcinema on Dec 30, 2020 21:22:20 GMT
Investigation of a citizen above suspicion (REWATCH): One of the greatest masterpieces of the 1970s (and that Morricone score!).
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 31, 2020 18:50:48 GMT
Verónica (2017) - 7.5-maybe a bit higher even / 10 ........on Netflix
A 6.2 on IMDB (wrong again!) - an exemplary Spanish teen horror film by something of a big time guy in the horror genre too - Paco Plaza of REC fame - this is far better than it has any right to be. With a marvelous lead portrayal by Sandra Escacena the movie hits all the right plot points while having a walloping sadness to it. The great one-time child actress Ana Torrent appears as her mother and the film plays on that casting and history too. Not that scary maybe but a terrific movie overall with a scary atmosphere and trappings - and a straight line, logical narrative pattern from the first scene right until the end. Impressively done across the board.........on an acting, screenplay, directorial level and it doesn't cheat at all either which is pretty rare in this material. 
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Post by Mattsby on Dec 31, 2020 20:47:34 GMT
  Double feature about radio shows to end the year, both 7.5/10.... Welcome Back, Mr McDonald (1997) a Japanese close-quartered comedy (like Bogdanovich's Noises Off in a recording studio), very good fun and sharply satiric on creative compromise and warring egos. It's on YouTube. And A Prairie Home Companion (2006) a beautifully made ode to the music, the troupe, and the long goodbye, if you know what I mean. Several secret refs to Altman's past work (a Presbyterian church mention), a stacked cast, and a gentle playfulness with the genre nods and funny dialogue against a looming sadness, a clear awareness by Altman that it's his last show too. |
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Post by TerryMontana on Dec 31, 2020 21:35:56 GMT
The Cry Baby Killer (1958) - 6/10 This one is just an hour long and it was Nicholson's film debut so I thought I'd give it a watch. And it wasn't bad. A very interesting story but it felt like it would explore some very intriguing topics and never did (the human nature of a crowd watching a tragedy taking place in front of their eyes, young men trying to drug girls, the power of the press)... But 60 minutes is a very short time to get deep on such things. Of course I probably wouldn't have seen it if it wasn't for Jack but actually there are many long scenes without him on screen. But while it was Jack I watched the movie for, afterwards I read about the real life tragedy of another cast member, Barbara Ann Thomason, shot dead only a few years after the release of the film. All in all, it could have been much better but I enjoyed what I saw. 
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 31, 2020 22:35:20 GMT
Eye For An Eye (2019) - 7+/10 on Netflix2nd movie reviewed in this thread today by Paco Plaza (REC, Verónica) and the second movie this week reviewed here starring Luis Tosar (Miami Vice, Sleep Tight) excellent yet again as linchpin character in a dark, lurid crime story. The pace of this film is like De Palma on cocaine guzzling Red Bull trying to top his most visceral work .....the plot makes Oldboy - which is a clear influence - seem "realistic" ...........put them together it is just blazing to watch. If you can just accept its ludicrous coincidences (there are a ton) and not question it too much, it IS wildly entertaining and this and Verónica are on Netflix and Sleep Tight is on TUBI.........quite a Spanish triple feature of the 2010s and all are recommended.  |
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Post by franklin on Jan 1, 2021 1:46:33 GMT
Barry Lyndon (1975)
In occasion of New Year's Eve it was on TV.
I think this has become easily my favorite Kubrick film ever??
Maybe objectively his greatest film ever??
Also i didn't know he basically did his own darker and more realistic version of Forrest Gump nearly 20 years before!!
I finally get Del Toro's comparisons of The Irishman to this film, Frank Sheeran seems absolutely to be a Barry Lyndon-type of character.
10(or maybe 11?)/10.
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Post by Joaquim on Jan 1, 2021 5:30:03 GMT
Rewatched death of Stalin and it’s still fucking amazing. Unfortunately I did not get to see Beria get shot in the face as the clock struck midnight, missed it by about a minute
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Post by stabcaesar on Jan 1, 2021 17:46:34 GMT
The Nightingale - It's a shame that the barbaric European colonialism is so rarely explored in film. This is one of the most horrific viewing experiences in recent memories. That final shot is amongst the best of 2019, and Aisling Franciosi was volcanic.
The main weakness of this film, however, lies on the thinly-written villain. Sam Claflin's character was way too caricature-esque, and he didn't do much to elevate it. 8/10.
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Post by TerryMontana on Jan 1, 2021 21:04:27 GMT
Agatha (1979) - 6/10
I finally got the chance to watch this Hoffman-Redgrave pairing. And it was a treat watching them acting side by side.
But apart from that, the movie didn't have a lot to give. An imaginary story of what happened during the 11-day disappearance of Agatha Christie.
An interesting but weak film overall.
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Post by DeepArcher on Jan 2, 2021 23:19:02 GMT
Black Bear (2020): Parts of this don't work at all but the parts that do work are kinda exhilarating. Don't wanna say too much else about this, I went into it pretty blind and I can't recommend enough doing the same. Love Aubrey Plaza in this, Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon are pretty great too.
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Post by Mattsby on Jan 3, 2021 19:31:01 GMT
 Love Letter (1953) 7/10 or more. Kinuyo Tanaka's directorial debut, she was one of the first women to have their movie in competition at Cannes. Scripted by Keisuke Kinoshita (also wrote Masaki Kobayashi's feature debut the same year) about a hiding, struggling to survive postwar Japan - mainly following a middle aged loner who gets a job writing "love letters" for women to their American sweethearts who've left them. Tanaka directs perceptively, looking at the hypocrisy of shaming "comfort women" while paralleling them in the protagonist, often doing laundry and pining for a long lost love himself (his letters for the girls have double meaning). Nothing in this movie is portrayed too easily or melodramatically - it's sensitive to wartime traumas, the bind of gender views, and the renegotiation of social roles. |
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Post by jakesully on Jan 4, 2021 16:21:14 GMT
Drive (re watch for the million time ) This film never gets old. I love it so much
10/10
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