Movies You've Seen Recently |OT| Jan 2014

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The Driver
Some of the shots in this film and Walter Hills directorial style clearly must of been a influence for Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive. It's a bit strange seeing Ryan O' Neal in this type of role, since I have been used to seeing him so many times in Barry Lyndon. The car chases are incredible.

just watched this the other day too

the opening scene is basically ripped for drive .. as is simply calling him "the driver"

but yeah the car chase scenes were amazing and much better than in drive frankly

I've never really seen any bruce dern movies before Nebraska.. does he have any old classics i should check out?

also

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Isabelle Adjani such a babe

might check out streets of fire next i remember cosmic bus posting about it a while back
 
^Well shit, I was hoping the PGA would clear up the BP race. Guess the DGA is gonna be interesting this saturday

also, Expendable saw Linklater's new film Boyhood before all of us, so fuck him

And I still haven't seen Linklater's movies other than the Before Trilogy. What should I see next?
 
And I still haven't seen Linklater's movies other than the Before Trilogy. What should I see next?

Still working through him myself but: I'd probably go for Dazed and Confused before Slacker despite the latter being made first. Dazed is a better entry point I think. From there School of Rock, Bernie, and Waking Life are all well worth a look. Wouldn't be too hard to go chronologically after Dazed if you really wanted to too.
 
just watched this the other day too

the opening scene is basically ripped for drive .. as is simply calling him "the driver"

but yeah the car chase scenes were amazing and much better than in drive frankly

I've never really seen any bruce dern movies before Nebraska.. does he have any old classics i should check out?

also

Isabelle Adjani such a babe

might check out streets of fire next i remember cosmic bus posting about it a while back

Coming Home and The Great Gatsby (1974) are good options. Streets of fire and a few other films from Walter Hill are in my watch list.

And I still haven't seen Linklater's movies other than the Before Trilogy. What should I see next?

Dazed and Confused (Matthew Mcconaughey's breakthrough role in this nostalgia fuelled American high school film set in 70s Texas)

The Waking Life (Very Philosophical film presented in a surreal dream like narrative)
 
Her

My emotions were all over the place when seeing this. Happiness, laughter, frustration, uneasiness, sadness. I feel I should have at least shed a tear or two during a couple of scenes, but that didn't happen which is almost disappointing. Maybe if I had been in any real relationship it might have helped. In any case, I must say that this is my 2nd favorite movie of the year. And Phoenix was robbed of an Oscar nod.

Philomena

I was going through different emotions while watching this movie as well. Laughter, sadness, but the last 10-15 minutes was plain built-up anger/frustration.
Bullshit religion reared its ugly head once again. That old nun really pissed me off. The whole thing reminded me of a plotline in Season 3 of Sons of Anarchy
. That aside, it's a great movie that's worth seeing if you can find it in a theater.
 
The Warriros (1979) by Walter Hill


First watch and loved it. Deserves it's cult status.

5/5

Such a great movie. Just extra ordinary. I have never seen anything like it. The cinematography is second to none.

I've seen Man of steel, while the movie was boring and too chaotic in general, there were several plot points that kept distracting me throughout.

The most annoying one being:
Why the hell doesn't Zodd just live on Earth with its atmosphere and enslave all of humanity? A couple of years with breathing difficulty aren't worth being able to fly and go through buildings like butter? Really?

Also, this didn't need to be this long, for fuck's sake, 5 hours of buildings collapsing...

Sometimes Snyder can be too high brow.

I wish we had a 4 hour cut.
 
And I still haven't seen Linklater's movies other than the Before Trilogy. What should I see next?

Slacker and Dazed and Confused are both really good at the kind of laid-back, plotless observation of humans existing you see in the Before trilogy. That's why I'm kinda hyped about Boyhood, that seems kinda like the culmination of Linklater's style, but done in a way I don't think any narrative film ever has.
 
This is a really good point, and I agree with it but the one thing I'd like to add (cause I'm an argumentative bastard) is that sometimes that sometimes that misinterpretation is purposeful. I think it's hard to judge that level of awareness of a film as an audience member, and that can get into knottier issues of intention and auteurism

Oh definitely true. And it makes it really interesting when you are able to hear a director talk about their own works, especially ones from 50 or 60 years ago where interviews and quotes are scarcer. A lot of the time they say things that can stomp on how critics have been interpreting their films in their absence. I remember Schrader's interview with Bresson having quite humorous results, a few years after he had written Transcendental Style in Film.
 
Just saw Her today, I liked it, cinematography was good.

Watched Side Effects this weekend on netflix good movie, and rooney mara is so hot.

and Monsters University, the effects (lighting, fur, textures, etc) was amazing.
 
Oh definitely true. And it makes it really interesting when you are able to hear a director talk about their own works, especially ones from 50 or 60 years ago where interviews and quotes are scarcer. A lot of the time they say things that can stomp on how critics have been interpreting their films in their absence. I remember Schrader's interview with Bresson having quite humorous results, a few years after he had written Transcendental Style in Film.

Hah yeah sometimes I feel like I'm cheating when I know how a director feels about their film decades after watching it before I watch it. Like I watched New York New York last night and in an intro on the DVD Scorsese talks all about how combining the improv of Mean Streets with the rigid artificiality of MGM musicals is a weird idea that shouldn't work and probably doesn't work, but he felt he had to do it. so going into it with that mindset I appreciated the experiment, when I maybe would have just been put off had I not known how uncertain he was about it himself. Ah well.
 
Sometimes Snyder can be too high brow.

I wish we had a 4 hour cut.
The more i think about it, the more i hate it.

I would save like.. not even 20 minutes total, from it.

Also Jor El's plan was really weird.
Send your son to Earth to be educated by random people? What if he ended up in some place with war lords to raise him? Or what if he was raised by a family of racist homophobes? Captain Aryan Nation?
All that "you will guide them" bullshit would've been all the more ironic.

Besides, Superman isn't shown as someone with intellectual or moral superiority over the average human being, how is he more fit to lead anyone?
I find it weird that he never addresses a political figure in the whole film, aside from the general (the movie features some of the dumbest military i've seen, btw) i think that was a missed opportunity; i think the Superman character can have interesting political and moral implications, if you want to go the "gritty realistic" way.
Though i guess that would end up being a re-thread of Dr.Manhattan's role in Watchmen.
 
I liked it a lot, but god damn Jason Segel could not have been worse in it if he tried. I've never seen a worse performance from him, which is weird since he wrote it and it was a dream project of his.

Eh its a fun musical comedy family movie its not like i'm expecting Leonardo DiCaprio/Al Pacino/Anthony Hopkins Oscar level of performance. Also Jason Segel is a funny actor and i have no issues with him.
 
Eh its a fun musical comedy family movie its not like i'm expecting Leonardo DiCaprio/Al Pacino/Anthony Hopkins Oscar level of performance. Also Jason Segel is a funny actor and i have no issues with him.

He looked like he was reading off of cue cards the whole time because he was distracted by how awesome he thought it was to be around the Muppets. He was really, really bad in it. Because of the style of movie it was, it wasn't that big of a deal, but damn.
 
Rewatched Raging Bull yesterday. Great film, but the Jake La Motta character (portrayed brilliantly by DeNiro) is such a despicable guy, impossible to like. Pathetic and hateful. We all know Scorcese-films often have anti-hero's in the protagonist role but this must be his most extreme case. Yet Scorsese still manages to make him somewhat affectionate, find his humanity and make the viewer dig deep for some sympathy.
 
Big Trouble in Little China

This is the weirdest goddamn film I have seen by John Carpenter. Need to rewatch it because I was drowsy during the second half.
 
Winter's Bone

A very depressing and dark film set in rural America. Jennifer Lawrence giving away an absolute great performance as 17-year old Ree. Brought in trouble by her absent father she goes out on a search to find him to make sure she can continue taking care of her sick mum and little brother and sister. Finding someone in a world where secrecy is a key element of business is proven to be difficult.

The film is very raw and depressing in it's setting. Rural America makes an excellent location for beautiful shots and director Debra Granik takes full advantage of that. But it's mainly because of the great acting and the very real characters that this film is a great watch.

7/10
 
...Rural America makes an excellent location for beautiful shots and director Debra Granik takes full advantage of that. But it's mainly because of the great acting and the very real characters that this film is a great watch.

7/10

The Ozarks look like a post-apocalyptic wasteland in real life and I thought the film did a great job of capturing that decay and framing the characters within it.
 
The Ozarks look like a post-apocalyptic wasteland in real life and I thought the film did a great job of capturing that decay and framing the characters within it.

Yeah, I've never visited America but I read on a blog from someone who lives near the place where they shot the film that they did a good job on portraying the people who live there and the look of the area overall. Movies set in these parts of America always seem to have such a depressive tone.
 
Blue Jasmine was really great.. I loved Cate Blanchett performance and how self-absorbed her characterization was.. and Woody Allen keeps proving to me that nobody makes fun of his own privilege better than himself.

Also he really needs to make a film starring Louis C.K someday.. his brief role was pretty awesome.;p
 
The Act of Killing - Such a chilling documentary to watch, definitely one of the most disturbing films I've seen in recent years. Highly recommend it.
 
Before I saw them I thought Inside Llewyn Davis and Her were the kind of movies making #1s on lists just because NY and LA critics wanted to brag that they were seeing these movies a couple months before everyone else, but after seeing them I do think they belong-- though it's sad bullshit that with Sundance arriving already those films are already out of the conversation, as if all they needed were two weeks at the end of december.
Anyone else enjoy The Spectacular Now?
I thought the plotting and the directions the drama went bogged the film down plenty, especially as it progressed, but ponsoldt seemed pretty in touch with modern high school life in the beginning of the film and Woodley and Teller are both soooo good
 
I put in my top 10 of 2013, if that counts!

Coming from you, it doesn't.

Before I saw them I thought Inside Llewyn Davis and Her were the kind of movies making #1s on lists just because NY and LA critics wanted to brag that they were seeing these movies a couple months before everyone else, but after seeing them I do think they belong-- though it's sad bullshit that with Sundance arriving already those films are already out of the conversation, as if all they needed were two weeks at the end of december.

I thought the plotting and the directions the drama went bogged the film down plenty, especially as it progressed, but ponsoldt seemed pretty in touch with modern high school life in the beginning of the film and Woodley and Teller are both soooo good

Miles Teller has potential. The way he emotes at the end of the movie when he was talking to his mother is rarely seen in a young actor.
 
The fact that there was suppose to be two more films about it is amazing because I feel the ending has a lot of thematic resonance going for it, most notably on how it plays on the "madness" of the main character.

yeah, but there's still the subplot about the man and the old man and the prostitute that didn't go anywhere; everything about Nakadai's character was pretty great though.

also RIP viewtiful
 
Anyone else enjoy The Spectacular Now?
I thought the first 2/3 was great although thought the
alcoholism thing
was a little forced.

I wanted a little more give and take between the two main characters and thought that and the detour to
Dadland
got in the way of that.

Good movie though.
 
^kinda reasonable, idk. Guy probably has 100 script ideas up in the air he can shelve one if people are being shitty about it.
Miles Teller has potential. The way he emotes at the end of the movie when he was talking to his mother is rarely seen in a young actor.
From waht I remember he was great in Rabbit Hole (still underseen) too. Which kinda makes it suck that he's doing stuff like 21 & Over or That Awkward Moment-- hopefully he ends up keeping his lamestream fare to the Divergent series and choosing meatier roles elsewhere. Rumor is he does well in Whiplash.
 
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