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[StuBurns]

I think Badlands is on his weaker side, it's better than TTRL, but I'd put the other three comfortably above it.

 

[Thug Waffle]

Malick's finest hour, I enjoy Days of Heaven but Badlands is the best directorial debut of all time in my opinion. And I say this in a world where Citizen Kane, Breathless, The 400 Blows and The Night of the Hunter exist. And Eraserhead but most probably wouldn't put that in a list of best debuts. I would though.

Most people are seriously cray and uninitiated. I'm with you on Eraserhead.

 

[Jarnet87]

The Master - saw it this weekend. I thought it was very good. I thought Hoffman had the best performance, not to slight Phoenix who was also very good. I haven't seen There Will Be Blood or Magnolia yet, but I definitely want to watch them to see how the pace goes in those films compared to The Master. Boogie Nights had a faster pace to the film, not that I found this film to drag or be boring.

 

[TCRS]

A Bronx Tale - Pretty good movie. Half way through I realised that the actor who played C was also in The Sopranos and was later jailed in RL for burglary. Crazy.

True Grit - That girl was very good, so were Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. Loved it.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Return of the Son of...

The Haunted Castle (Melies) ***/**
Roundhay Garden Scene and Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (Le Prince) ***** and **/***

Love (Yoji Kuri)

It's rare to find a hallucinatory short like this so firmly on the dividing line between cahoots and creepiness. The premise itself is simple enough for Mr. Kuri to go through each episode of passive-aggressive affection, but what places he visits! Films like these are typical of his style, featuring meek men against warlord women, as if he planned on predicting an invasion of the opposite sex into the Japanese workforce back before the turn of the '70s. While I definitely think Love shows a negative depiction of women outside of context, knowing how Kuri's psychology manifests in works like this can enlighten a viewer's perception of his oeuvre in general. Everything in this animation is so much a caricature that it's difficult to take anything seriously, working against the narrative itself and allowing the animator's tone of visual humor to push through.

Welp, it's kind of like the Yellow Submarine's big daddy. ***/**

Murder (Makoto Wada)

Muhdeh, foo.

In actuality, this is just the cutest kind of genre spoof. Every time the viewer thinks the short's over, that same opening sequence replays and then segues into a variation on the murder plot. It quickly escalates from a Holmesian detective spiel to an Italian horror story and finally concluding on something like Last Year in Marienbad. That's right: this is a humorous yet affectionate send-up of genres themselves. I think it shows that Wada has a deep appreciation not just for older literature and movies that had influenced Japanese directors from an earlier period, but also for as much of the French New Wave as could be accessed in Japan at the time. There's not much else to say other than that it's not surprising he's gone on to direct his own live-action films, each bedecked with his own subtleties and, yes, publicity posters of his own graphical design.

Cute, but not necessarily the best thing I've ever seen. ****/*

Boogie-Doodle (McLaren)

As it is, Boogie-Doodle's a masterful work in the art of visualizing music. This animation, the first in a long line of similarly groundbreaking work by McLaren, simply transfigures a groovy blues bang-a-rang into a series of drawn-on-film doodling lines and geometries. That's it: nothing but a gradual morphing of shapes into more and more complex ones. The reason it works so well, though, is that McLaren's eye for fluidity and establishing the proper rhythm for changes in figure and perspective ties the whole short together. Granted: it's not a hard task to conceptualize; this movie would be nothing without its soundtrack, just as it has nothing to say in any way, shape, or form. But the mere act of putting it all on-screen to a swift tune isn't easy to accomplish without falling into redundancy. Nothing feels repetitive in this piece, though. It's as if the animator knew exactly how jumpy and sudden each rapidly-moving doodle should progress between each bar in the time signature.

Next up are Neighbors and a few others. ***/**

Mt. Head (Koji Yamamura)

This is the short that gave Koji Yamamura—who I affectionately consider the bastard student of Yuri Norstein and Kathy Smith—his worldwide recognition as one of the leading independent animators in Japan today. It's not hard to see why. The animation is not only full-frame and lacking in excess, but rich with visual caricatures and the sense that, were he given a greater budget, his mixture of cel animation, digital doctoring, and glass-plate visual effects would simply overwhelm its audience. He has a keen ability to distort the faces of Japanese people into shapes simultaneously cute and disgusting (some would say Priit Pärn's got a hand in influencing that). Even better is how he can emulate the brackishness of puddles by shooting his cels through glass plates, or perhaps thrusting winds that show up in a different depth-of-field than the drawings themselves. All this combines to gradually distend Mt. Head's poetic comedy story further and further until, at its breaking point and climax, every element blends into one another with enough ferocity to make Yoshinori Kanada cry.

And everything was like wut. ****/*

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Mazursky)

Robert Culp & Natalie Wood & Elliot Gould & Dyan Cannon: four versed actors & actresses out on a field day with director Mazursky. What could possibly go wrong?

Consider the possibilites.

Here's one: my review's a long critique of sub-surface flaws that no one really likes to talk about when referencing this movie. Oh well, it was in my DVR queue. ***/**

The Restaurant of Many Orders (Okamoto)

Maybe this is just an appetizer for what woulda-coulda-shoulda been, but Okamoto's final creation is a splendid example of how accessibility meets complexity. There is no barrier to watching this movie: it's dialogue-free, bias-free, and free to watch somewhere on YouTube (and I hope that luxury never goes away). But it is bound, of course, to Miyazawa's original story, a clever if straightforward fable deploring the material greed of Western societies. I personally think the tale's a bit uncreative, taking the usual Grimm influences and putting them into a context mixing Buddhist commentary and a relevant, topical premise (there were no British game-hunters in Japan before the Meiji era). However, I could say the same for top-tier home-video products: they'll often have near-perfect transfers for poorly-maintained sources. The same analogy applies here to the way Okamoto iterates on Miyazawa's own fairy-tale iteration. The Restaurant of Many Orders hits all the expected notes, but without complacent direction to bog it down.

The LB review's more a critique + analysis of why I love this short so much, but I think I did a good job. *****

Glassy Ocean (Shigeru Tamura)

This must be what heaven looks like on LSD. Golly—I can barely tell if anything's happening!

Nothing really does, but it's a decent film anyway. ***/**

Dots (McLaren)

They're dots. Yay. Beep boop scratch-track-audio this and that—dots. Oh look, the buggers're poofing around like raindrops on a windshield, how neat. Yup, this is a Norman McLaren short—uh huh, it sure is.

He's quickly becoming one of my favorite Western animators. ***/**

Demon (Kawamoto)

This is definitely lesser, earlier Kawamoto by the standards of later works like Dojoji Temple and House of Fire. But it's still quite good and the first work indicative of his creativity in puppet animation. It cuts to the chase with an intriguing opening based around a spiritual journey through the mother's life and ends on a similarly abstract note—beginnings and endings based around yamato-e visual scenes. All of this melds in with the director's characteristic use of shooting through glass plates with 2D animation on them, in addition to his evolving ability to convey a Noh play with puppet actors. I think this is the most thematically dark short of his I've yet watched, too, given my trying-to-be-ambiguous intro to this review. It delivers a unique cultural viewpoint in a way so straightforward that those who find the central ideas uncomfortable will not like this flick. If anything, that's like saying Triumph of the Will's much too good at portraying the Nazi Party in a positive light: evidence both to a concept's indifference towards certain individuals and to an artist's ability to actualize that idea in a particular medium.

Proceed without caution, fellow enthusiasts. ***/**

Tales of a Streetcorner (Tezuka)

There's a little something called "kitsch" that, difficult as it is to define, gives most artists a lot of trouble to render unique within their own sphere. Some musicians, like Yasuharu Konishi of Pizzicato Five, started with transmuting cuteness into pop records, up until he ventured towards producing other groups' records en masse. Some film-makers, like Walt Disney, started without kitsch, instead entranced by the wonder of fantasy, before moving into rather complacent territory for animators to go (e.g. the typical Disney musical feature and all of it descendants, Don Bluth included). Some illustrators, however, can use kitsch to great effect as a means of commenting on how, today, everyday life is stylized to look adorable and non-threatening, or to transmit recollections of childhood wonder. That's essentially the basis of Osamu Tezuka's first short, where a lone corner of the great city that is life represents—in the mind of children and immature beings—the manifold nature of life.

I just wish it got to the fucking point.

Proceed with caution, then. **/***

The Four Feathers (Zoltan Korda)

September the 3rd, 1939: the British Commonwealth declares war against Nazi aggressors storming Poland from the start of the month. With the Phony War phase of profuse war-time procrastination under way, what derring-do did the gallant lads and lasses of Great Britain do?!

They went to the theaters and watched The Four Feathers—in droves, of course. It had already been released a month before, but now it had become London Film's biggest success since The Private Life of Henry VIII. If that isn't perfect timing for a propaganda epic like this film, then I don't know what perfect timing is.

But it's no simple propaganda film.

No, it's a really interesting early-Technicolor Lean-like work that I found on TCM. ****/*

Aos (Kuri)

I'm not even going to bother with a quote, because I'm done. */****

 

[EliCash]

I'm not sure I would rank it higher than the ones you listed but I do think it's one of his best Let me add my own controversial albeit (slightly) relevant statement: it's way better than Mean Streets.

Yea I doubt many would, I just really love Badlands. It's probably in my top 3. I also really love Mean Streets. Johnny Boy and Kit, two amazing and charismatic characters right there.

 

[Divius]

I watched the LOTR EE trilogy for the first time over the weekend. So yeah, pretty good.

Good stuff, did that in March last year. Can't wait to do a Hobbit + LOTR marathon.

Just saw Argo today. I loved the look of the movie, how "dated" the cinematography and editing felt, and it added a great dimension to an already great looking period film.

Wasn't a big fan of the movie itself but I agree they nailed the setting/feel of the period.

Speaking of Malick, anyone seen To the Wonder ? I hear pretty bad things about it from critics who were die-hard Tree of Life defenders...

I'm kinda sad it's getting negative reviews but I'm looking forward to spend time with To The Wonder, I just want to watch it and drift away with the film and its beauty while Affleck whispers poetic things in my ear. Will have to wait for the blu-ray release though.

 

[Extra Sauce]

Good stuff, did that in March last year. Can't wait to do a Hobbit + LOTR marathon.

OMG, I had not even realized this inevitability.

Or "How to develop back problems".

 

[Divius]

Yeah that would be like an ~20hr marathon depending on the length of Hobbit 2 & 3 and the fact if we'll get extended editions of them. Jeez.

 

[Joni]

The Omega Man: Good movie, but I can't quite understand why they would fight each other. I get it how Neville thinks they're monsters in Will Smith's I Am Legend, but in this one it should be enough for Neville-Heston to say Okay, let's live peacefully, I don't really need electricity.

 

[mxgt]

Take Shelter - Holy shit Michael Shannon is so good in this. Great movie.

 

[StuBurns]

Why are people talking about Mean Streets? Don't his first two films count for some reason? I know people don't always count Spielberg's first two because they were for TV or something.

 

[Lafiel]

Biggest complaint I've heard about To The Wonder that worries me to a extent is the characterization. Heard a lot of people were rather cold on it. But honestly if it's even more mood-driven than his previous films, I think I'll love it, malick has always been wonderful for capturing those small transcendental moments that we all experience in life. I find The New World so easy to watch for those reasons, despite the overwhelming length of the extended cut.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Why are people talking about Mean Streets? Don't his first two films count for some reason? I know people don't always count Spielberg's first two because they were for TV or something.

Huh? I think everybody recognises Duel.

 

[Blader]

Where are you fancy pants seeing Wonder? I wanna see.

Came out in the UK last month.

 

[Broseybrose]

Take Shelter - Holy shit Michael Shannon is so good in this. Great movie.

Yes. And yes.

 

[Number45]

Is there anything wrong with this version of T2 (Skynet Edition)? Just curious, because that seems rather cheap (and it's in a 3 for £17 promotion as well).

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Is there anything wrong with this version of T2 (Skynet Edition)? Just curious, because that seems rather cheap (and it's in a 3 for £17 promotion as well).

The extras are an absolute pain in the ass to try and watch and it takes like 5 minutes for the fucking thing to load and watch the film itself. Pretty damn good video transfer which could be better. Great audio.

 

[BaronLundi]

Why are people talking about Mean Streets? Don't his first two films count for some reason? I know people don't always count Spielberg's first two because they were for TV or something.

You'll find it's my fault if you (re)read my post. I was just rebounding on Elicash's take on Badlands. The only connection is that both films were released ten days or so apart.

 

[EliCash]

Why are people talking about Mean Streets? Don't his first two films count for some reason? I know people don't always count Spielberg's first two because they were for TV or something.

Yea, I thought we were just talking about Mean Streets just because. It has the air of a directorial debut I suppose, due to how raw it is. I miss that Scorsese.

The thing is I oddly associate Badlands with Mean Streets, maybe because it's the same year, or maybe it's just because they're two of my favourite films, not sure. And with regards to his first two I actually really like 'Who's That Knocking At My Door?' too. Been meaning to watch that and Boxcar Bertha again. I really can't remember what I thought of Boxcar Bertha, but I know a re-watch isn't essential. Probably the only time Marty made a film for the money.

 

[jakncoke]

160) Grey Gardens 1975

A documentary about a old mom and daughter in east hampton, really does nothing cept make me lol at the crazy daughter

161)The Grifters 1990

Kinda slow at first but worthy ending

162) Lars and the real girl 2007

Lol bet there is gaffers out here like ryan gosling character

163) The Warriors 1979

epic classic, rewatch for me.

163 total
108 new watches
55 rewatches

 

[lazybones18]

Driving Miss Daisy

May not be worthy of winning Best Picture, but dammit I still liked it

 

[Rhomega Beta]

Top Gun Awesome movie with awesome plane scenes and awesome soundtrack.
Liar Liar I just love how Jim Carrey deals with not being able to lie, how he acts when he tells the truth against his will, or his struggles to lie.
Waiting for Superman To sum it up, the problem is tenure, teachers unions, and the convoluted regulation structure.

 

[Incster]

Take Shelter - Holy shit Michael Shannon is so good in this. Great movie.

If you haven't seen it already, check out Shotgun Stories - same director and another killer Michael Shannon performance.

 

[Expendable.]

Spring Breakers is very thin, fairly disturbing satire on mindless youth -- a neon nightmare.

Also, lots of boobs.

 

[Count Dookkake]

Sounds perfect.

 

[strafer]

Pretty good.

 

[Epcott]

Finally watched Dredd tonight.

Pros:
+Loved how they didn't show Urban's face unlike the old film.
+No punches held in the violent and gritty department.
+Did a good job creating Mega City 01

Cons:
-For such a great city design, its a shame most of the movie is indoors. Felt like The Raid 2000.
-Too much slo-mo. I understand love of new camera tech but it was overdone (and to say its due to a drug named by the same effect is cheesy.
-I want a sequel but will never get one

Overall, much better than the old film in the rawness and unapologetic nature. Unfortunately, what the old film had over this was at least taking us through Dredd's world, including the wasteland. Sadly, I get the old film confused with Demolition Man, so I keep wondering where the MDK and 3 shells would pop up

Spoiler

I kid

.

 

[Illithid Dude]

Spring Breakers is very thin, fairly disturbing satire on mindless youth -- a neon nightmare.

Also, lots of boobs.

Exactly what I wanted.

 

[Currygan]

The Kings' Speech: 10. That's how you fucking act. Geoffrey Rush is a god.

thumbs up. I'd say Firth was up there, as well


rewatched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Best spy story of the decade. Gary Oldman should've won the fucking Oscar

 

[Akahige]

Norwegian Wood (2010) didn't hit me like a ton of bricks like the novel did but it was beautifully filmed and well acted for the most part 7/10

Gantz (2010) pretty good until the last battle then it deflated 6.5/10

Gantz: Perfect Answer (2011) way too melodramatic and the fight choreography seemed to worsen from the first film 4/10

The Girl (2012) solid tv movie 6/10

Pitch Perfect (2012) solid as well 6/10

Identity Thief (2013) not really funny, waste of money 3/10

ParaNorman (2012) great 8/10

Wreck-It Ralph (2012) great 8/10

also rewatched Anna Karenina (2012) & 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), one of my favorites from last year & one of my favorites of all time.

 

[HoJu]

Deliverance 5/10 - Too many slack-jawed yokels for me.

Margaret 8/10 - I don't know if i've ever seen a more complex teenager in a movie before. Loved the moments that were superfluous to the main plot-line, like Brodericks character. The movie was surprisingly hilarious as well. Does anyone know if the director's cut is worth seeing?

 

[lamaroo]

Killing Them Softly: 7. Story not that great, pacing horrible, weird choices, but MAN.. The violence is some of the best i've seen.
It deserves an oscar for best violence.

I'd agree with all of this, I need more Dominik films.

 

[EliCash]

Watched Vivre Sa Vie (1962). Anna Karina's eyes...

 

[Hela]

I saw the devil - This is without a doubt one of the best crime/thriller movies I've ever seen and one of the best movies overall in recent years.
Also it's brutal as hell, definitely not for people faint of heart.

 

[StuBurns]

Spring Breakers is very thin, fairly disturbing satire on mindless youth -- a neon nightmare.

Also, lots of boobs.

I can already tell they nailed it. It looks garbage. Can't wait.

 

[Borgnine]

Beyond The Hills: 9/10. Really great, even with all THE SYMBOLISM. Still manages to be quite subtle at the same time, heavy religious themes and lots of gray areas.
Pather Panchali: peer pressure rating: 10/10. Actual rating: 5/10. I just didn't care, man. Some nice moments, but I just didn't connect with any of these people. I'm sorry that you don't have any money.
A Man Escaped: 8/10. The definitive prison break movie? Very lean, no bullshit, just planning and action. All the drama is in the sounds of footsteps approaching and the decibel level of scratching.
White Heat: 8/10. Cagney's character carries this whole thing, and all the stuff with his mom made it much more interesting. Also as an aside: the Hay's code said you couldn't show a gun firing and hitting someone in the same frame, there had to be a cut between the two. But there's a scene in this movie where you can hear a guy locked in a car trunk and then Cagney fires in to the trunk without a cut. Interesting way to get around the restriction, but still pretty jarring, I mean I noticed it right away. I was like fuck that was brutal.
Basic Instinct: 7/10. Obviously I had to study this movie in college in order to get my degree, but I don't know if I ever watched the whole thing. I do remember being 13 and seeing the interrogation scene on VHS, and let me tell you, those things were not made for composite video signals. I was like... that's it? That kind of nebulous mist is what it's all about? Anyway I thought this was actually pretty cool, really hot + Verhoeven grossness. A lot of fun. Jeanne Tripplehorn is weird looking.
Fury: 6/10. What an odd premise, but all right. Felt kind of all over the place, but intriguing none the less. Dumbass ending.
Elephant: 7/10. Well that was terrifying. Despite being only 80 minutes long, it's packed with all these long tracking shots, where I suppose we're supposed to be looking for the meaning of it all. I thought they were unnecessary. Couple other little nitpicks, when people puke they don't just cough. Also we're treated to a depiction of a PC first person shooter that looks like the worst fucking game on earth. It's a gun barrel shooting down Half Life 1 character models on a white field. ANYWAY. Yeah the final sequence though, fuck that shit. Apparently this is the second in some sort of irl death trilogy from Van Sant, imma watch the other two.
Ivan The Terrible Part 1&2: 10/10. My jam. Lots of melodramatic close ups and shadows and eyeball acting and religious icons and themes and weirdo sets and epicness. Just loved it, masterpiece.

 

[MidnightCowboy]

Marnie- I don't know where it ranks amongst Hitchcock's movies as I haven't seen most of them, but I sure as heck liked this more than Vertigo based on just first watches. I didn't really like Vertigo until I rewatched it. It's so much more melodramatic than Vertigo and Rear Window, the other Hitchcock I've seen. The actress that plays Marnie overacts in almost every scene, and I just eat that stuff up. Sean Connery is a douche, but as suave and charismatic as ever. Some weird editing decisions, like holding too long on something before fading away, but nothing horrible. My only complaint is the way the flashback at the end is shot. 8/10

 

[Count Dookkake]

White Heat: 8/10. Cagney's character carries this whole thing, and all the stuff with his mom made it much more interesting. Also as an aside: the Hay's code said you couldn't show a gun firing and hitting someone in the same frame, there had to be a cut between the two. But there's a scene in this movie where you can hear a guy locked in a car trunk and then Cagney fires in to the trunk without a cut. Interesting way to get around the restriction, but still pretty jarring, I mean I noticed it right away. I was like fuck that was brutal.
Basic Instinct: 7/10. Obviously I had to study this movie in college in order to get my degree, but I don't know if I ever watched the whole thing. I do remember being 13 and seeing the interrogation scene on VHS, and let me tell you, those things were not made for composite video signals. I was like... that's it? That kind of nebulous mist is what it's all about? Anyway I thought this was actually pretty cool, really hot + Verhoeven grossness. A lot of fun. Jeanne Tripplehorn is weird looking.

Caught a print of WHITE HEAT in December. Wonderful flick.

Regarding BASIC INSTINCT, it is a shame they went with the shitty sequel.

At one time it was gonna be a Cronenberg film starring Kurt Russell. I can only dream of how Cronenberg would top the crotch shot.

 

[Thug Waffle]

Watched Vivre Sa Vie (1962). Anna Karina's eyes...

Yup. There are a bunch of close-ups of her in A Woman is a Woman where she's basically just sitting on the camera's face with her own face. Beautiful and remarkably talented for someone who didn't know a lot of French and then acted in French films.

 

[Divius]

Nice little writeups, Borgnine. Always enjoy reading them.

At one time it was gonna be a Cronenberg film starring Kurt Russell. I can only dream of how Cronenberg would top the crotch shot.

Wow, that would have been insane.

also: Oh Kaeptain my Kaeptain, anyone know what happened to Yamato?

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Nice little writeups, Borgnine. Always enjoy reading them.

Wow, that would have been insane.

also: Oh Kaeptain my Kaeptain, anyone know what happened to Yamato?

Who?

 

[EliCash]

Yup. There are a bunch of close-ups of her in A Woman is a Woman where she's basically just sitting on the camera's face with her own face. Beautiful and remarkably talented for someone who didn't know a lot of French and then acted in French films.

Haven't seen A Woman is a Woman, it's on my list.

 

[xXBetter Off DadXx]

Saw Dead Man Down the other day.....pretty disappointed overall. Farrell was good, as was Rapace, everything was good really, except the script. Some pretty lame dialogue at times and overall, just a story that appears to have potential to go some interesting places, and then...doesn't.

Also rewatched Beasts of the Southern Wild, I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, although that was just on a superficial level(some of the cinematography, soundtrack, etc.), this time....I don't know. I may just be reading into something that wasn't there, but was a message in the movie that ANY type of intervention by modern medicine is a bad thing? I got that feeling from the sequence where they are discovered and brought to the medical camp. Otherwise, I dig it. Some scenes towards the end really hit me hard, though I will add Oscar Nominated performance? Sure it's impressive because she is so young and it's her first acting gig, but oscar worthy? Meh.

 

[Femmeworth]

also: Oh Kaeptain my Kaeptain, anyone know what happened to Yamato?

Went down with his ship.

Seems like something happened in one of the fighting threads.

 

[~Kinggi~]

Finally saw Life of PI. That was pretty incredible. What a amazing multi-cultural movie. Visual effects were on another level. Its a travesty the effects company went out of business immediately following this. Anyway, they do a remarkable job with this and Ang Lee proves to be very versatile. It amazes me he has made this, Brokeback Mountain, and Crouching Tiger....crazy portfolio.

 

[HoJu]

Great movie and yeah, Lisa is terrifically written & played by Paquin. It's nice to see what she's capable of when she's not saddled to that shitty HBO vampire show.

If you already liked the movie, most definitely check the director's cut; it fleshes many of the assorted plotlines that enriched the film but sometimes seemed to be awkwardly dropped & cut off in the theatrical version. It's a bummer that it's only available on DVD, but whatever.

Yeah, the changes seem substantial enough to purchase the extended version.
Now I'm itching to watch You Can Count on Me...

 

[Minamu]

Just saw Kick-Ass thanks to the trailer for 2. It was great for the most part. I'm not a big fan of Cage's costume or character (they should be locked up), but Hit Girl came as a surprise and the comic references and such were funny. I actually felt pretty good about myself for getting them

 

[Blader]

The Place Beyond the Pines

I liked it, though I might it say it's the kind of movie that feels less than the sum of its parts. The story structure is really interesting, I think some people will find it very contrived but since I had a basic idea of it going in, it didn't bother me. The first two acts are really great though they feel rushed, wasn't as much a fan of the third act but didn't hate it.

Spoiler

I did hate both of the kids though, especially Dane DeHaan who I knew would be a problem for me. :lol I cannot stand his acting and I have no idea what so many people see in him. On paper, I can completely see what Cianfrance was going for with Jason and AJ, but on screen, they're just a couple of shitheads.

It was hard to tell what exactly this movie was leading to, and even though the ending

Spoiler

makes sense thematically, I don't totally like the resolution it comes to. Again, Jason being a shithead.

Anyway, even though it fell a little short of the hype for me and I definitely prefer Blue Valentine, I still really liked this.

Bonus: Cianfrance was there to do a Q&A after the screening and brought Bradley Cooper with him as a surprise guest! That was pretty cool.

 

[Epcott]

Tonight...

The Dark Knight Returns Part II:
Awesome movie. I only wish there was a version of part 1 and 2 without a break in between on BD. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Silent Hill Revelation:
Didn't go in with high hopes, and was still disappointed.

Spoiler

Monster fight finale and Pyramid Head the carousel operator were cringe inducing

... as was the dialog. Horrible.