Movies You've Seen Recently |OT| Dec 2013

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The Happening

There are two ways to judge this film.

The first is to call it awful and place in "the so bad its good" list where it joins the ranks of "The Room","Street Fighter" and "Flash Gordon".

The second way to look at it is to call this is a modern film masterpiece in which it is deconstructing the B-movie genre. I prefer this interpretation.

The Happening is INTENTIONALLY BAD. The acting, the editing, the pace, all of it was intentionally done on purpose. The problem here though is that most people didn't get it.

I will just leave you guys with this excellent re-analysis of the film:

Sure, there's an argument to be made that Shyamalan has had a couple of misfires but when people start referring to "embarrassing flops like The Happening" I have to draw a line. I personally consider The Happening as one of the best Hollywood movies of the last decade and, by some distance, the most misunderstood. It is, without question, Shyamalan's masterpiece. So I'm setting the record straight.

If you've not seen it, Mark Wahlberg stars as Elliott Moore, a science teacher who must make his way safely across Pennsylvania when a suspected terrorist attack causes people to commit suicide en masse. The radio suggests it's an airbourne toxin. Shelter from it appears nigh on impossible. Suspense abounds, right? Wellllll....

Perhaps much of the problem with how this film was received lies with the audience's expectations. The Happening was pitched as a return to form for Shyamalan. It was Action Mark Wahlberg in an apocalypse survival movie that the poster claimed was a "nailbitingly ferocious thriller". This was going to be something we could all get our heads around and enjoy. The trailer was fast-cut, all images of hysterical people fleeing in confusion from an unknown terrorist threat. Marky Mark was gonna save America! Yeah! You wouldn't be an idiot if you went in expecting a Roland Emmerich style disaster thriller.

What you get, however, is the exact opposite.

Within the first few minutes, Elliott talks to his students about the "interpretation of experimental data". Shyamalan is giving his audience a clue right here about what they need to do and The Happening is indeed one of the most daringly experimental mainstream films of all time. In some senses, it's almost an anti-film (and, as a fan of transgressive cinema, I don't mean this as a snide put-down either).

Just about every aspect of The Happening is a defiance of expectation. It uses the tropes of classic disaster/survival B-Movies (Shyamalan clearly knows his classics) but inverts them. The pacing of the film, for example, moves in reverse. It starts off quite fraught and slows down further and further as it goes on. By the time it reaches its (anti)climax, it's become almost motionless with fewer words, longer takes, extended periods of stillness and silence; a vastness you can almost feel.


The characters are irregular too. Our hero - traditionally a chiselled macho type, exactly what Wahlberg would normally play - is a science teacher. He speaks in an awkward, squeaky, almost camp voice and makes few actual decisions to drive the action. His character arc pretty much follows the opposite of the classic orphan-wanderer-warrior-martyr structure. He martyrs himself early on by trying to save his wife and his best friend's daughter, fights a little to get them out of Philadelphia but becomes gradually more lost and orphaned from those around him as the story progresses. Likewise, when they meet the military, they're (incredibly!) even less assertive; a total opposite of the usual bull-headed hard-asses one finds in disaster films. Private Auster doesn't even swear, instead exclaiming "Cheese and crackers!" in a ridiculous high-pitched voice when he's scared.

The dialogue in general becomes weirder when situations show signs of tension. The big showdown scene that's been building between Elliott and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) is a surreal discussion over an "illicit tiramisu" and a "completely superfluous bottle of cough syrup" that gets deflated before it even has chance to blow up. Whenever Alma references films, she gets them colossally wrong, confusing Fatal Attraction with Psycho and The Exorcist with God-only-knows-what. With this, Shyamalan further distances himself from genre as we know it.

The plotting, likewise, inverts genre convention. Instead of having to reach the city to find denser populations, the survivors must split into smaller and smaller groups, as the toxin affects people when they're gathered in number. Instead of there being any mystery (or the obligatory "Shyamalan twist!") we learn within the first act that the toxin making people kill themselves is being generated by the trees; again an interesting take on expectation. There's one shot near the start in which we see looming nuclear power plants behind a row of green trees. The instinctive reaction is to look at the black smoke and think "well, that's your evil right there" but instead, it's the bright and seemingly benign plants in the foreground. The killer is right under your nose from the very start. It's a non-mystery. A theydunnit.

The title itself is perhaps the most explicit gag of all in relation to these contradictions. It's called The Happening and yet (as many critics pointed out) almost nothing actually happens throughout the whole film.

But what's the point? Is it just - as the text suggests - "an act of nature and we'll never understand it"? Do we simply enjoy the irony and the bizarre humour of wacky dialogue like "Why are you eyeing my lemon drink?" and appreciate it as an almost Zucker Brothers-like spoof of the B-movie? Of course not. Anything that is so lucid and careful in its rejection of the rules must have a reason and The Happening is no exception.

You see, whatever else it may be, the film is undeniably creepy. Even many of its detractors admit that the suicide scenes unnerve them. In my opinion, it's not so much the visceral elements of these scenes (men running themselves over with lawnmowers, feeding themselves to tigers in the zoo or hanging themselves from trees in groups) that are upsetting. It's the randomness - the unfathomable juxtaposition of this self-inflicted horror onto normal, everyday life - that's shocking and therein lies the crux of The Happening.

It taps right into mankind's fear of chaos. The existential dread that events cannot possibly be connected and that life is both unpredictable meaningless. Before committing suicide, characters become disorientated and repeat things. One of the spookiest scenes in the movie has a young girl telling her mother in monotone, "Calculus, I see in calculus. Calculus. Calculus..." before throwing herself out of the window. This is no throwaway line. The film is rooted in the mathematics of change, humanity's inability to control it and the emotional agony this causes.

This is why The Happening has to play as an anti-film. To reinforce this abstraction, this inability to connect with the conventions of societal (or in this case cinematic) expectation. It's a sister piece to Shyamalan's own Signs, in which everything happened for a reason. Even the most trivial event tied together at the end of Signs to demonstrate the workings of an omnipotent greater force. If Signs was an overtly religious film stating without doubt that there is indeed a God, The Happening is the opposite; a spiritual plea for help - a desperate crisis of faith.

Things work out for them and the "happening" stops as quickly as it started. There is no reason for anything. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes people die. Sometimes they don't. The world is cruel, unfair, without rules or structure. We can only try our best to survive (which brings us full circle - The Happening is in fact the survival movie we were promised, just deconstructed and reassembled into something entirely new). Yet the very last scene in the film - everything beginning again in Paris - leaves the viewer caught in an existential loop. A disconnection from reality can strike anywhere, to anyone, at any time. Life is precious and all too fragile. A thought as comforting as it is terrifying.

The script here is so carefully constructed, so multi-layered and so rhythmic it's almost poetry. The fact that much of the dialogue was deemed simply ridiculous by audiences saddens me because every word feels so perfectly in place. The opening line of the film is "I forgot where I am". Anyone who's experienced depression need look no further than this beautifully crafted sentence to understand the nature of Shyamalan's vision here. To create a big budget Hollywood genre film from such a sad place is not commonplace behaviour and for that alone, The Happening should be re-evaluated and appreciated.

It is beautiful, bold, quietly devastating and nothing like any other film ever made. If only every "embarrassing flop" could be so flawless.
 
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The Happening

There are two ways to judge this film.

The first is to call it awful and place in "the so bad its good" list where it joins the ranks of "The Room","Street Fighter" and "Flash Gordon".

The second way to look at it is to call this is a modern film masterpiece in which it is deconstructing the B-movie genre. I prefer this interpretation.

The Happening is INTENTIONALLY BAD. The acting, the editing, the pace, all of it was intentionally done on purpose. The problem here though is that most people didn't get it.

I will just leave you guys with this excellent re-analysis of the film:

You have quite possibly the most random taste in films I've ever seen from anyone.
 
That's a decently interesting alternate take I think. I haven't seen The Happening so maybe it's way off-base but I like that it exists
 
I looked up to see what had come out this year, and it's been a shit year for animated films. We have great stuff like: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, The Croods, Despicable Me 2, Epic, Turbo and Planes. I would have to say that The Wind Rises is a lock. It's Miyazaki's last film, and all the rest of the releases this year are shit. I would assume since The Wind Rises has played in the US already, that it would have to be considered right?

Don't know when The Congress comes out properly, but that is the best movie I've seen this year.
 
PUxMP3v.png



The Happening

There are two ways to judge this film.

The first is to call it awful and place in "the so bad its good" list where it joins the ranks of "The Room","Street Fighter" and "Flash Gordon".

The second way to look at it is to call this is a modern film masterpiece in which it is deconstructing the B-movie genre. I prefer this interpretation.

The Happening is INTENTIONALLY BAD. The acting, the editing, the pace, all of it was intentionally done on purpose. The problem here though is that most people didn't get it.

I will just leave you guys with this excellent re-analysis of the film:

I've actually always liked The Happening.

It was kind of a corny premise and it wasn't used to it's full potential but it if you go into it not expecting too much I think it's enjoyable.
 
Yeah, I liked the Happening for that reason mentioned. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece though. I would never go in that depth to defend that film (or any depth actually) though for I have important things to do like find a cure to butt cancer.
 
In all honesty, I have warmed to Temple in recent years. Everything up to the point when they actually arrive at Mola Ram's temple is enjoyable. I just hate the temple part.
 
Heh, I just watched Temple like 15 minutes ago (with Raiders last night and Last Crusade tomorrow). It's soooo much better than Crystal Skull but still not in the same league as Raiders and Last Crusade. Really, if it weren't for some unnecessary disgusting parts, some hokey action, and the awful, awful blond chick it would be great! It has the awesome Shanghai intro, Short Round, a sweet setting, and a threatening enemy (that isn't the Nazis!). Really just get a better lead girl and most of its problems would fix themselves.
 
Been watching some stuff off my "mumblecore" watchlist even tho I think it's a stupid term to classify these movies...

Drinking Buddies - A recent one, the latest from Joe Swanberg. I've only seen Alexander the Last from him, which didn't really blow me away at the time. Very watcheable indie effort, loved the improvised performances, and some decent acting and image quality doesn't really hurt the overall effect. Surprised by how decent Olivia Wilde was, and respect for choosing this as a project, I'm guessing she had some choices as what to star in.

Somebody Up There Likes Me - A lot quirkier and having to work with a very low budget, this was more akin to the orginal movies that were coined "mumblecore". Dragged a bit in the end, Nick Offerman was great tho.

Funny Ha Ha
- The one that started it all, and I hadn't even seen it. I was pleasantly surprised, because even with the very low budget, amateur acting and home video style image quality, I got into the story and characters and enjoyed it from start to end.

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I made a list of 50 of these films on iCM, still 37 to watch!
 
After watching Aaron Eckhart's interview on Speakeasy, I wanted to check out a couple of Neil Labute movies and reading there is a bit of Mamet with his stuff got me intrigued.

In the Company of Men (1997) and The Shape of Things (2003)

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"I can't hear you when you're lying."

Aaron Eckhart is great at playing the slimy, corporate misogynist which now makes sense why he was perfectly cast for his role in Thank You For Smoking. It's a cool cautionary dark comedy, and the last shot is brilliant.

"It's a sick fucking joke, but it's not art."

The Shape of Things is basically the subversion of the romcom, where the character development of the schlub has more puppet strings attached. Loved the acerbic, cynical tone. The twist was a real gut punch. The antagonists in both movies seem to work off a "because I could" Machiavellian philosophy, and the creepy thing is how believable this would be in real life. I've never seen Rachel Weiz so feisty. Modern art being the weird social experiments they are, this is not a far stretch of events to happen to someone. Paul Rudd is great, and much like this year's sentiment with Prince Avalanche, I wish he picks more interesting movies to be in rather than toothless romcoms.

Surprisingly, I liked the latter more because 90s corporate dudes (Aaron Eckhart and american Phil Collins) being sociopaths is a bit more played out and the rug being pulled out moment belongs more with the the latter.

Might now need to check out Your Friends and Neighbours (Aaron Eckhart and Ben Stiller in a dark comedy, yes please) next.
 
Blue is the warmest color I liked it, a bit too long though, I lost a bit of interest in the last hour. Really liked the acting and the film's naturalistic feel. I found the small tensions and conflicts that arose because of class differences really interesting.

Jagten Oh man, that movie made me want to punch so many of the characters in the face (in a good way)! Really liked it, though it should have ended
on Christmas eve with Theo and Lucas starring at each other, the rest felt like a shitty epilogue.
 
Cedar Rapids (2011) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1477837/

A very simple little comedy. A smalltown insurance agent has to travel to an insurance convention of sorts to represent his company after the previous spokesperson is unable to do so.

Simple man has his life shaken by casual sex, drugs, alcohol, comes to question his integrity, keeps his pride etc.

Approximately 30 minutes after the end credits you will have forgotten you ever watched this movie.
 
Heh, I just watched Temple like 15 minutes ago (with Raiders last night and Last Crusade tomorrow). It's soooo much better than Crystal Skull but still not in the same league as Raiders and Last Crusade. Really, if it weren't for some unnecessary disgusting parts, some hokey action, and the awful, awful blond chick it would be great! It has the awesome Shanghai intro, Short Round, a sweet setting, and a threatening enemy (that isn't the Nazis!). Really just get a better lead girl and most of its problems would fix themselves.

If only Spielberg wasn't thinking with his dick on that one.

If only.
 
1. Favorite movie? 2001: A Space Odyssey

2. Top three actors/actresses? the guy from American Psycho, the guy from The Dark Knight, and the guy from The Prestige

3. How horrible is The Avengers? not horrible at all

4. How many films do you watch a year? (Guesstimate on this if you like). around 100

5. Favorite genre? (Alternatively: Favorite style/theme (noir, cyberpunk, Dogme 95)?). psychological thriller

6. What is your favorite acting performance on film? (Can apply to dancing, too). my avatar says it all

7. Who is your favorite director? Chris Nolan

Man Of Steel (2013)

Boy it really is hard to make a great superman movie, isn't it? There's a lot I could say, but I'll keep it short. With Zack Snyder and Chris Nolan's name attached, I expected a better movie. It felt too segmented and preachy. I get that they wanted to make a darker, serious superman movie, but I think it could have been handled better. It's still worth a watch though because of the epic batman superman movie coming out.
 
Can somebody explain what "mumblecore" is? I looked it up, and it simply seems like an indie movie.

It's kind of just like, you know, like whatever right? You know what I mean, like, a little bit but not really. Anyway.
 
Apocalypse Now: Brilliant! Love the colors, there's a sunset or sunrise seemingly every 15 minutes, lots of orange and yellow. Then when it's not doing that, it favors complete darkness, the low lighting adds so much tension to the bridge sequence and all the scenes with Kurtz. I love how stylized it is, Kilgore is absurd, the puppy on the battlefield, it just stays with you. Sheen is appropriately on edge the entire time, loved seeing a young Fishburne. It's definitely one of the best war movies I've ever seen, though I'm really partial to Waltz with Bashir.
 
National Board of Review Awards

Best Film: “Her”
Best Director: Spike Jonze, “Her”
Best Actor: Bruce Dern, “Nebraska”
Best Actress: Emma Thompson, “Saving Mr. Banks”
Best Supporting Actor: Will Forte, “Nebraska”
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, “Fruitvale Station”
Best Original Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen, “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Terence Winter, “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Best Animated Feature: “The Wind Rises”

More here.
 
I saw ESCAPE PLAN which definitely could and should have been better. It was quite fun finally seeing Stallone and Schwarzenegger putting their wrinkly old muscles together, but it all seemed without much joy and very uninspired, especially the boring direction. Best thing about it might just be the supporting cast with Caviezel AKA Jesus as the Warden with his right-hand-man Vinnie Jones AKA Vinnie fucking Jones, FIFTY 'fiddy' CENT as a genius computer nerd (yes) and Sam Neill as the prison doctor. **
 
The only mumblecore film I have seen in Cold Weather. I would suggest watching one to get a better idea of what it entails.

I think that was the first I watched too, and actually one of the better ones. You really have to be in the mood to be able to enjoy some of the earlier examples.

And here's that list I made. I know not everything on it qualifies per se (especially the post 2010 stuff), but they are all related to the so called scene.
 
Pretty much mumblecore films are films that don't have a real script (usually they are just 20 page outlines of what is supposed to happen) and they use improv between each other to make the dialogue naturalistic. Also they are supposed to be made on the cheap and mostly shot digitally. Pretty much Cassavetes and Mike Leigh were the grandfathers of the genre that didn't know they were going to create.

My favorites of the genre are Frownland, Pleasure of Being Robbed, and Daddy Long Legs (aka Go Get some Rosemary). The best recent ones are the Do-Deca Pantheon and Drinking Buddies. Next ones I plan on watching are Sun Don't Shine and Entrance.
 
The Dirties
"Trust me, this is a movie!"
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There might have been other movies about bullying and school shootings, but not quite like this super meta mockumentary within a mockumentary. It's kinda like the Adaptation of school shooting movies. If you liked Afterschool, you should like this similar look at a desensitised cinema-bred culture.

The protagonist thinks his whole life is like a movie. He seems aware of how disconnected from reality he is, and tries to make it into a comedy but only half-joking of wanting to kill the dirties gang at school. He half-jokingly wants to collect a bunch of copies of Catcher in the Rye and blueprints of the school to give the idea that he's insane. The plot beats are predictable, you know exactly where this is going. That's obviously not important and the filmmakers seem cognisant of that. It's how they get there. Even as I knew what was going to happen, the last 10 minutes were still gut-wrenching and disturbing. Obviously it's topical so that gives it easy word of mouth, but it's shockingly well done considering you're dealing with just high schoolers on screen.

The ending credits are a homage to iconic cinema credits, ridiculous amount of fanservice there.

So yeah, watch out for film nerds.
 
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Decent movie with an amusing premise. Andy Garcia and Geena Davis stole the show here. Dustin Hoffman was kind of annoying, honestly.

2.5 out of 4 stars
 
Pretty much mumblecore films are films that don't have a real script (usually they are just 20 page outlines of what is supposed to happen) and they use improv between each other to make the dialogue naturalistic. Also they are supposed to be made on the cheap and mostly shot digitally.

So like Gladiator?
 
Pretty much mumblecore films are films that don't have a real script (usually they are just 20 page outlines of what is supposed to happen) and they use improv between each other to make the dialogue naturalistic. Also they are supposed to be made on the cheap and mostly shot digitally. Pretty much Cassavetes and Mike Leigh were the grandfathers of the genre that didn't know they were going to create.
All I know is you helped make a mumblecore feature—the whole scene's still alien to me, which I should remedy soon.

That NBoR award slate looks pretty questionable, but it's good to see The Wind Rises getting its due. Also, I didn't think The Secret of Kells could disappoint me so much. The concept art and storyboarding is really, really great, but the animation's cheap and mediocre both from a Disney and John Kricfalusi perspective. Brendan's uncle is an annoying, characterless, poorly-sound-mixed plot device that the movie chucks in favor of Aidan; Aisling's relationship with Brendan starts somewhere and then peters out to nothing by the end. The story itself is the rote coming-of-age plot, but with all the digressions and lack of complexity that injured The Thief and the Cobbler (which, while being about as flawed in the story department, at least looks better than this successor of sorts). There are moments when this thing shines—the opening goose hunt, Aidan's flashback, climbing the tree, some of the montage shots, and everything related to the Book of Kells itself—but everything else feels too variable to work. There's only casual mention of Christianity and paganism and their interactions through Brendan, which makes for wasted potential. At least the music's great.
 
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Kagemusha

Meticulously crafted cinematography and outstanding direction from Akira Kurosawa. One of his best.

The Fall

Another visual stunner. Some of the shots are out of this world. With a movie this beautiful you could forgive some of its minor flaws.

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Top 5 new-to-me films of November:

5) The Cranes are Flying
4) Sansho the Bailiff
3) Hiroshima, mon amour
2) Woman in the Dunes
1) Harakiri
 
It's kind of just like, you know, like whatever right? You know what I mean, like, a little bit but not really. Anyway.
This is a perfect description of the genre if you picture Joe Swanberg saying it to a topless greta gerwig on a floor mattress in an inexactly lit apartment, all shot digitally
 
Here are the documentaries on the shortlist for Oscar consideration

The Act Of Killing
The Armstrong Lie
Blackfish
The Crash Reel
Cutie And The Boxer
Dirty Wars
First Cousin Once Removed
God Loves Uganda
Life According To Sam
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
The Square
Stories We Tell
Tim’s Vermeer
20 Feet From Stardom
Which Way Is The Front Line From Here? The Life And Times Of Tim Hetherington

I'm rooting for The Act Of Killing, but Stories we Tell was pretty good as well.

edit: I asked about 2013 animated films earlier, that shortlist is up as well.
 
So, picking from that list of nominees. It'll be something like this:

The Wind Rises
Frozen

Monsters U

What are the other 2? One of the bolded will win for sure.
 
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