Movies You've Seen Recently |OT| JULY 2014

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Divius

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It's July. You watch movies. Post your opinions about them & discuss in here.

DO NOT just post the title of the movie you watched. It isn't conducive at all to the kind of discussion & communication we want to engender here, because it tells us nothing of you, the movie, the impact of the latter on the former. Post scores, descriptions, essays, poems, gifs, hashtags, whatever provides you the best outlet for personal expression, you unique little digital snowflake. - icarus-daedelus

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iCheckMovies
Letterboxd​

If there are people who haven't been added to this and want to be, speak or forever hold your peace.

Gvuc7o5.gif
 
Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor are two of my favourite action heroines. James Cameron did a good job with both their characterizations, if you ask me.
 
You think people would be used to Femme not liking your favorite movies

Unless your favorite movie is Hook, then you deserve all the hate
 
Percy Jackson and The Sea of Monsters - It's a somewhat enjoyable fantasy adventure film. Pretty much on the same page as the original. Entertaining film that has some action, some drama, some comedy to it. If they make more sequels I'd probably check them out.
 
Messofanego said:
UK:

Boyhood - 11th July

Norte, The End of History [trailer] - 18th July

Excited! Never seen a Lav Diaz movie before.
Click to expand...

Aw fuck, i'm leaving the UK mere days before boyhood comes out. Here's hoping it comes to some film festival in India soonish.

TheKaeptain said:
People still use letterboxd?
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Its still pretty useful to find reviews of non wide release stuff in my experience. I stopped writing 'reviews' there but the logging stuff provides a good metric for how many movies you've seen in the year and such.
 
TheKaeptain said:
People still use letterboxd?
Click to expand...

Yup. I still see all the regulars over there. Borgnine reviews his own movies, AlternativeUlster watches stuff I've never even heard about, Swoon has insight (and also found the caps key), Femme is not rating anything save from reviews trashing Shame. Business as usual.
 
BaronLundi said:
Yup. I still see all the regulars over there. Borgnine reviews his own movies, AlternativeUlster watches stuff I've never even heard about, Swoon has insight (and also found the caps key), Femme is not rating anything save from reviews trashing Shame. Business as usual.
Click to expand...
Hey now, I occasionally give some movies a heart. Maybe.

I suppose I should start giving ratings, at least what I give them on Netflix which is just a general enjoyment scale.
 
It's been a while since I've participated in these threads...

I watched Grand Budapest Hotel. I'm not a fan of Wes Anderson at all, but I quite liked this film. It was whimsical and charming in a Jean-Pierre Jeunet kind of way, and the entire package came together quite nicely. I wasn't a fan of the minatures, although it fit the film tonally, but everything from the narrative to the performances was spot on. Ralph Fiennes in particular stole the show. I totally couldn't imagine that type of character from him, but he freaking nailed it.

I also watched Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, which is probably my second favorite film within the franchise behind Jason X (I fucking love that movie for whatever reason). It pretty much nails the blue print for 80s slasher films. Awesomely cheesy practical effects, inventive deaths, an ensemble of stupid teenagers, high body count, cute women, etc. And Crispen Glover probably has among the most laughably bad dances that I've seen in a film.

I typically wait until October to do so, but I'm in the mood for some 80s slashers, so I'm probably going to find myself going on a bit of a binge over these next few days.
 
Yeah I don't really like Wes Anderson (except for fantastic mr fox) but Budapest hotel I loved

Ralph Fiennes for sure was the highlight
 
I made a LetterBox thingy, too: http://letterboxd.com/potk_ken/

Rise of the Guardians

At it's core, I consider Rise of the Guardians a family adventure film. While there are a fair amount of action scenes in the movie, I wouldn't say there's actually any real violence in it. At worst some character's get tossed around a bit, but that's it. Most of the film is either dedicated to some comedy bits between wither the main characters or some smaller side characters in the form of North's elves or Tooth's fairies, or segments that build up the main cast. The pacing throughout the film is pretty fluid and it knows when to slow down and take its time to take in stuff.

Much like with The Croods, Rise of the Guardian's' real strength comes from the interactions and reactions of the characters. Bunnymund and Jack Frost bounce off of each other well, Sandy's inability to speak and usage of his magic sand to create signals makes for some decent visual gags, and North is probably the most rousing, fun-loving Santa Clauses ever put on screen (or at least in animation). Unfortunately as much as I like her design, Tooth doesn't get that much screen time as I wanted her to, even though I do think she gets some good lines. Pitch Black wasn't bad as a villain either. He has a proper back story and motivation, a couple funny lines here an there, and the way he was actually defeated was actually pretty interesting. Possibly my favourite moment in the film was when North, Sandy, Bunnymund and Jack all had to collect teeth due to Tooth starting to lose her powers. Seeing them all trying to outmatch each other racing from rooftop to rooftop gathering teeth was great, with an incredibly funny joke nearing the middle of the segment that brought a huge smile on my face.

Visually, the movie is pretty good. The animation isn't really anything to right home about, but I was rather impressed with some of the locales and even some of the character designs (with the exception of Jack's), which is considered one of DreamWorks' biggest problems with their movies. Out of all of them, the designs of the Tooth Fairy, her fairies, and her domain were probably my favourites. Another problem DreamWorks has with it's movies is their weird selections with their voice cast, but this movie probably has one of their better casts. Alec Baldwin as North/Santa Claus was unbelievable, and it was nice to hear Hugh Jackman actually use his native accent as Bunnymund. While I originally thought that Jude Law was miscast as the villain Pitch Black, I eventually grew into it. Chris Pratt as Jack, though, I thought was really distracting. I think it was mainly due to his character design (seriously, a hoody?), but it just felt off to me. The film's score was overall not entirely memorable, outside of the rousing theme that plays during action scenes.

Overall while not an incredibly inventive or innovative film, Rise of the Guardians is still a fun, family friendly romp with some neat ideas, great visuals and fun characters.

3/5
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Ernest and Celestine

I'll just cut to the chase: Ernest and Celestine is as harmless, as adorable and as beautiful a film as all the trailers make it out to be.

The film centers around the title characters of Ernest, a hibernating homeless bear with aspirations of becoming a musician, and Celestine, an orphaned little mouse that always ponders exactly why mice and bears live in segregation from each other. After nearly getting eaten by a hungry Ernest after being found in a trash can, Celestine provides Ernest with a source of food, and a small friendship is born. One thing leads to another, and they end up turning into outlaws. Now hunted by both of their kinds, Ernest and Celestine are forced to hideout together and the growing friendship is put to the test.

Visually and audibly Ernest and Celestine is phenomenal. There's literally a 1-1.5 minute transitional segment in the movie where it's nothing but music and paint covering the screen and I honestly thought that scene alone was worth the price of admission. While I was originally planning to watch the film with the original French audio, the English dub of the film was fantastic either way. Forest Whitaker and Mackenzie Foy are perfect as Ernest and Celestine. He even gets a song in the beginning begging random passers by for food!

There is only one real qualm I have with the film, and that's with it's climax. I won't give it away, but that thing about the film where I said it works in parallels? That actually comes back to bite it in the ass a bit during that moment. I didn't think that it was inherently bad, but I thought that it could've been done differently and would've been better off that way.

Ernest and Celestine is a near flawless treat that I'm glad I took the chance to see in theaters.

4.5/5
--------------------

I think I need to work on my formatting a bit.
 
Dr. Benton Quest said:
Not even Moonrise Kingdom? This thread is breaking my heart.
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Yeah, recently with Fantastic Mr Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, and Grand Budapest Hotel he's been knocking it out of the park on just the comedy while not being as emotionally distanced as previous movies asides from Royal Tenenbaums. I've taken my family to these movies and they've enjoyed their time because these are hilarious movies while I would never have taken them with Rushmore, Life Aquatic, or Darjeeling Limited.
 
Messofanego said:
Yeah, recently with Fantastic Mr Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, and Grand Budapest Hotel he's been knocking it out of the park on just the comedy while not being as emotionally distanced as previous movies asides from Royal Tenenbaums. I've taken my family to these movies and they've enjoyed their time because these are hilarious movies while I would never have taken them with Rushmore, Life Aquatic, or Darjeeling Limited.
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I'd argue that Life Aquatic is funnier than Moonrise, but then I again I think Moonrise is his weakest film.
 
The Life Aquatic is one of my favorite films of all time, and I really want to see The Grand Budapest Hotel, but Moonrise Kingdom is the kind of movie that I just have a really hard time wanting to see. The whole childhood angle plus a melancholy feeling I can just see coming is so uncomfortable for me I'm not sure I could watch it.
 
Edge of Tomorrow- Saw this last week, and really enjoyed it. The alien designs were awesome, the concept and direction was pretty cool, and Bill Paxton's expressions made me laugh. Was not expecting this treat at all. To add to all that, I love how Cruise's character
escapes the base just to ride his motorcycle lolcruise.
SIDE NOTES: Emily Blunt was looking guuud, I just found out she is married to gym from The Office. </3

Overall it was a really solid sci-fi flick.

4/5
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The Grand Budapest Hotel - Absolutely loved it, probably my fav Wes Anderson film so far.

4.5/5


Has anyone seen The Signal? , kind of interested to see it....
 
Enemy - 4/5

Wow. I don't think I've even felt so awkwardly uncomfortable and tense, while being so hopelessly compelled to continue watching a movie before. Very unique psychological thriller. The odd symbolism mixed with a fast-paced escalation in affairs made this movie greater than the sum of its parts. Also, as said before in the dedicated thread, that last scene just...whoa...slid backwards in my office chair 10 feet and just stared at the screen. Good shit.
 
Fight Club - Peer pressure rating of ****

I had never seen this movie before in my life, and the only Fincher movies I had seen were Se7en and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, so I expected something stylish. What I got was the most stylish film I'd seen from him to date. The camera movements, the colors, the grain, the meta narrative, the one-frame shots, the CGI work, and the bizarrely surreal content was all really neat, but the movie felt awfully full of itself at times. It also telegraphed the big twist a bit too much, I'd say. Helena Bonham Carter and Brad Pitt's motion capture bullet time sex scenes were a bit weird honestly, and I felt like they added nothing at all to the plot. I definitely didn't expect Meat Loaf in this film either, but I've always enjoyed Meat Loaf in movies. All in all, very interesting, but I can't decide if it felt hollow or not. I think it was a bit too layered to really be hollow, but I'm just not sure it was as huge as it thought it was. Then again, there was more interesting direction and flair here than I expected, even down to little things like the subtle noir-ish elements and Edgar Wright-ish travel transitions.
 
All About My Mother: 7/10. I mean it was all right I just don't know if this guy's stuff is really for me. I like his bright pallet ascetic thing it's all just a bit too soap opera-y to me. I do want to get to Talk To Her someday which is supposedly his best, I'll have to muster the enthusiasm somehow.

Being There: 7/10. So he's like a retard? lol'd a few times.

Happy Go Lucky: 6/10. One of the last Mike Leigh films I had to watch and this was easily my least favorite. I understand it was the point but Poppy was a pretty insufferable character. I definitely identified more with the racist misogynistic driving instructor. Enrahah.

Hamlet (1996): 7/10. This movie stars all of our greatest Shakespearean actors: Jack Lemmon, Billy Crystal, and Robin Williams, what in the shit?
 
Anyone got a recent figure on how many drive in are left in usa? Talking to someone from a town 25 minutes south of me and the owner of their drive in just passed away and the family might close it down for good. I wonder how much capital it'd take to run one.
 
Grand Budapest Hotel: Absurdly delightful. Like Disco, not normally a Wes Anderson fan, but I loved this one. Which is odd, because it may be the most Wes Anderson-esque movie he's ever made. I think its the nesting doll storybook context that makes the artifice really work this time around.
 
Oh wow, I guess Snowpiercer has done well enough to where it got a bigger rollout this week than originally planned, as a local theater managed to grab it. I guess I'll check it out early next week.
 
Oh dear. I just now noticed in the credits for Szürkulet:
ZhvYbq5.png


How could this not have been obvious to me?

Yeah, yeah. Tarr borrows massively from older Hungarian filmmaker like Jancsó so 'Tarr-ian' might as well be 'Jancsó-ian' but still, I should have known.
 
jakncoke said:
Anyone got a recent figure on how many drive in are left in usa? Talking to someone from a town 25 minutes south of me and the owner of their drive in just passed away and the family might close it down for good. I wonder how much capital it'd take to run one.
Click to expand...

There is one like 30mins away from me :-3
 
Caught Enemy just now. Wanted to see if since first announced after loving Prisoners. It definitely felt like a super small scale / budget art film which I liked. Very interesting watch, on IMDb on the forums reading peoples theories behind it all - deep stuff.
 
Bummed that tomorrow's USC screening of Boyhood Kaep alerted me to is completely booked, was looking forward to going. And it was free! I'll try to catch it next Friday I suppose, I saw there was going to be a Q&A with Patricia Arquette near me so I might try to check that out.

Also considering the brief Moonrise Kingdom discussion, I caught some of it on HBO today. Still isn't my favorite Anderson movie narrative wise, but damn it sure is pretty.
 
After seeing the trailer for Horrible Bosses 2, I finally sat down and watched part 1. I enjoyed it. Not sure how they are making a sequel of this movie but I hope it's good.

I also saw Ride Along. It was more funnier than I originally thought it would be.
 
The Wind Rises.

I thought it dragged in the second half, and i'm still not understanding why they've gone with that voice actor for Jiro, he's a student at fist, but sounds like a 40 y/o.
Aside from that, i thought it was one of the very best Ghibli has made yet, i especially like the haunting dream imagery and the sound design, with the bombs/earthquakes and planes' noises made by voice, pretty incredible final result.
I wasn't this captivated by a Ghibli movie in a while, but as i said, in the second half you start to feel that length.
 
The Grand Budapest Hotel - This is without a doubt the funniest movie Wes Anderson has ever made. I was grinning pretty much the entire way through. Ralph Fiennes is brilliant, just brilliant. It might have supplanted Darjeeling as my favorite Wes Anderson movie.
 
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