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[Randolph Freelander]

I watched Moana last night. Another good one from Disney.

 

[lordxar]

Weekend recap:

Moonrise Kingdom ...still bad ass.

Pieces Enjoyed this one a lot. It's very 70's for coming out in the 80's and reminded me a lot of a Herschell Gordon Lewis flick. It was a little easy to figure out the killer but a very cool story regardless.

Ghosthouse This sucked. Bad acting. Too long. Boring at times. There were some good ideas like the creepy ass clown but that was all wasted.

Death Race 2000 Finally sat down to watch this. I like the remake much better honestly. Frankenstein's car is pretty bad ass though.

Insomnia The original. What a fucked up story this is. Need to see the remake now.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Yeah we don't get many Susie Seatkickers in theaters anymore. They need to make a new psa for that Colin prick

We are almost exclusively going to the theaters with the reclining seats and the higher price tag these days, in the hopes that the rabble and their kicking children remain in the theaters that haven't upgraded.

That being said, even in a Cinebistro last year, my wife had to ask the woman next to her to stop texting on her phone. Like, what the actual fuck? You came to a movie that cost $15 to get into. Fucking watch it and put your phone away for two hours.

Been pretty lucky since then. Fingers crossed.

Plan on hitting Dunkirk in IMAX possibly on Friday if I can take the afternoon off from work.

 

[MikeMyers]

Baby Driver (Edgar Wright, 2017)

Pacing felt uneven at times but was visually interesting. Worth a watch.

 

[Captain Smoker]

Started to watch all Kubrick movies. Didn't see a single one to date. ^^

Two short films and a documentary. Nothing special or interesting really. Flying Padre is more interesting than Day of the Fight.

The Seafarers is just a commercial for the Seafarers Union, there is no reason to watch this boring thing aside from "I've seen it all".

Kubricks first movie and he tried to destroy every copy of it. ^^

All in all it's not a good movie. It's overwritten and the acting is bad, it has some nice moments though.

So Kubrick hated this movie too, but I liked it.

The end fight is pretty great and the shots of New York are really nice.

And I actually started to appreciate black and white movies after seeing this, very unique charm. Movie got me interested into more black & white classics.

 

[True Savior]

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - David Yates

What a lovely surprise. This was a delightful and charming movie, even the ridiculous romance is graceful. It's a nice welcome to this universe to have a story that doesn't revolve around teens. As time passes, it veers into a more conventional story with a boring conflict being resolved. Eddie Redmayne and Katherine Waterston are both funny and quirky without being weird. Really enjoyed it.

 

[duckroll]

In This Corner of the World

I've been waiting for this film for so long and it was worth every second. There's a lot that has been done with war films, even from civilian perspectives, about the tragedy of war, the horrors of war, and so on. But you know what? That's really not what this film is about at all. This is a film about the triumph of life, the power of innocence, and the manifestation of creativity and art even when suppressed and suffocated by the realities of the world. It's not a film that dwells on any particular thing, nor does it milk drama for emotional effect. It simply delivers life anecdotes as vignettes in the life of a girl as she becomes a woman - a string of memories to be cherished, viewed in the way memories often are: exaggerated, hazy, incomplete, or larger than life. The direction feels so effortless, the film just breezes by. The joy, the sadness, the hardships, everything is a celebration of what it is to struggle in life and yet find contentment in it. It might not be a message people like to find in escapism, but it's a vital theme in understanding how humanity works.

The art direction and animation style employed is very faithful to the source material, but in full color and animated it has a life of its own. There's a really strong sense of place in the film, which is important because it is very much about what place means to a person. Where you call home, what you are familiar with, who you are familiar with. Where you come from, and how people know you to be a stranger just from the way you speak. All the little details really add up to make this not just a story of Suzu, but of Eba and Kure as well. Most people know Hiroshima as a place which was struck by an Atomic bomb, but probably not many people know much about Hiroshima as a place itself, so it's nice to see effort put into detailing what these places were like, who lived there, and what people did there. In particular the naval arsenal industry that forms the bedrock of Kure is something that casts a dark shadow over the events of the story retrospectively. The characters in the story may be ignorant of what it means to the world at large, but knowing the nature of WW2 and looking back, it's impossible to not see how it would be dragged into the war directly.

What I really respect the narrative for is that it pulls no punches, but it never preaches. It is not a political story, it is not a guilt trip against war, it is not a sob story about how Japan also suffered, it is a tale of a woman's life who happened to live in that place at that time. There is no attempt to shy away from how nationalism is indoctrinated in the populace, or how the lack of great education in that period made many people choose the obvious choices of being domestic wives or working in the military. This is just life for them, and it wasn't something they labored over morally. Looking back, we can judge, and in part that's the point of examining society historically. But the story doesn't, and it any attempt to point the viewer in one direction or another are entirely with regards to characterizations. This is a story of the people and their little world, not the grander scale of what a world war meant.

Compared to stories like Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies, I much prefer stories like this and The Wind Rises. I'm not interested in tragedy to make a point, I'm interested in stories of how people might have lived, their ambitions, their loves, their loss, and them finding out for themselves in the end what that means for them. I love how the credits end with a special sequence where they thanked and credited every single backer for the original crowdfunding campaign which made the pilot film possible. It breaks my heart that in an industry as commercialized as anime, that no sponsor was willing to fund it without that show of support. Disgraceful!

 

[Peco]

In This Corner of the World

I've been waiting for this film for so long and it was worth every second. There's a lot that has been done with war films, even from civilian perspectives, about the tragedy of war, the horrors of war, and so on. But you know what? That's really not what this film is about at all. This is a film about the triumph of life, the power of innocence, and the manifestation of creativity and art even when suppressed and suffocated by the realities of the world. It's not a film that dwells on any particular thing, nor does it milk drama for emotional effect. It simply delivers life anecdotes as vignettes in the life of a girl as she becomes a woman - a string of memories to be cherished, viewed in the way memories often are: exaggerated, hazy, incomplete, or larger than life. The direction feels so effortless, the film just breezes by. The joy, the sadness, the hardships, everything is a celebration of what it is to struggle in life and yet find contentment in it. It might not be a message people like to find in escapism, but it's a vital theme in understanding how humanity works.

The art direction and animation style employed is very faithful to the source material, but in full color and animated it has a life of its own. There's a really strong sense of place in the film, which is important because it is very much about what place means to a person. Where you call home, what you are familiar with, who you are familiar with. Where you come from, and how people know you to be a stranger just from the way you speak. All the little details really add up to make this not just a story of Suzu, but of Eba and Kure as well. Most people know Hiroshima as a place which was struck by an Atomic bomb, but probably not many people know much about Hiroshima as a place itself, so it's nice to see effort put into detailing what these places were like, who lived there, and what people did there. In particular the naval arsenal industry that forms the bedrock of Kure is something that casts a dark shadow over the events of the story retrospectively. The characters in the story may be ignorant of what it means to the world at large, but knowing the nature of WW2 and looking back, it's impossible to not see how it would be dragged into the war directly.

What I really respect the narrative for is that it pulls no punches, but it never preaches. It is not a political story, it is not a guilt trip against war, it is not a sob story about how Japan also suffered, it is a tale of a woman's life who happened to live in that place at that time. There is no attempt to shy away from how nationalism is indoctrinated in the populace, or how the lack of great education in that period made many people choose the obvious choices of being domestic wives or working in the military. This is just life for them, and it wasn't something they labored over morally. Looking back, we can judge, and in part that's the point of examining society historically. But the story doesn't, and it any attempt to point the viewer in one direction or another are entirely with regards to characterizations. This is a story of the people and their little world, not the grander scale of what a world war meant.

Compared to stories like Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies, I much prefer stories like this and The Wind Rises. I'm not interested in tragedy to make a point, I'm interested in stories of how people might have lived, their ambitions, their loves, their loss, and them finding out for themselves in the end what that means for them. I love how the credits end with a special sequence where they thanked and credited every single backer for the original crowdfunding campaign which made the pilot film possible. It breaks my heart that in an industry as commercialized as anime, that no sponsor was willing to fund it without that show of support. Disgraceful!

That is precisely why I love Fumiyo Kouno and her works.

 

[Gnome Scat]

The Big Sick: 4.5/5

Really loved this one, and that's coming from someone who really does not like rom-coms. Despite this one sticking to formula and genre conventions, it brings in very unique and challenging elements of life that can put strain on relationships, as well as introduce vulnerable, flawed characters that are relatable and you actually care about. Also, the movie is hilarious, which is a big plus. I'd give the movie a 5/5, but I think it ran about half an hour longer than it should have. By the final act of the movie you can really feel this one drag; it's not a quality related issue, but more of a pacing issue. There were also a couple subplots in this one that could have been cut to save time that I don't feel added a lot to the whole movie, and at times would take the focus off the main plot. With that said, I rarely give out scores with ".5" in them, but this one really deserves it because despite a flaw here and there, it was a vey well made movie.

Silence: 5/5

Just watched this one last night and wow, what a powerful film this one was. Scorsese has such a mastery over his craft, and you can see it in full effect throughout the movie. For starters, it's absolutely beautifully shot. The cinematography, location, makeup, and costumes have that rare ability to transport you to another time and really immerse you in the setting. I think this was my first time seeing Andrew Garfield in a serious, dramatic role and man, he can actually act pretty well. I wasn't expecting much out of him but he really delivered on this one. It was also nice seeing Liam Neeson in something where he's not playing a disgruntled middle-aged man with a gun. The character of The Inquisitor was also done extremely well, and really helps elevate this movie into something greater than I expected it to be. The story was executed very well, not feeling that it needed to conform to the viewer's expectations, but instead offered a compelling take on the challenges one can face in their faith (albeit this much more extreme scenario) as well as how the world viewed Christianity in so long ago, and the difficulties that come from new faiths diverging from the status-quo, and also the obstacles that interfere with conversion, such as culture and language. I'm not a religious person, so it was an incredibly interesting and compelling film for me to watch since I've never payed any attentions to movies involving religion or faith. Scorsese is able to channel both the beauty and brutality that can come from religion and the conflicts that naturally surround it, and despite the content of the movie not being directly relatable to me, still manages to make it just as powerful, which I feel is a sign of a truly great director.

 

[jelly]

The Circle

Starting Emma Watson and the tech company that is Google/Facebook/Apple rolled into one. Maybe something flew over my head but her character actions made no sense whatsoever and the conclusion, did

Spoiler

lobbyists get to them in the end or something, who cares about privacy, person dies, parents hate transparency, privacy is good, she stays in bed for a few days then outs those big execs not wanting to live that no privacy life, goes back to living that no privacy life. What? You can't even see the argument of can't escape it because what she does is so against what happened

. The message was confusing and what was the point of Boyega, hmm servers oooooh.

 

[MidnightCowboy]

It's been a while since I've seen a movie shift tones as abruptly as Baby Driver does in its third act. Like wow it gets so much darker and intense than I was expecting, and to be honest, I kind of liked it more when it was lighter. Overall I still enjoyed it, but it's probably the weakest Wright movie I've seen. Fantastic editing, great cast, killer music. Really dug the appreciation/celebration of Americana and all those working class characters. Why the fuck doesn't Debora bail tho, like I enjoyed their chemistry and believed she liked him, but not that much lmao. The second shit goes down she should have realistically got out of there.

 

[Gnome Scat]

It's been a while since I've seen a movie shift tones as abruptly as Baby Driver does in its third act. Like wow it gets so much darker and intense than I was expecting, and to be honest, I kind of liked it more when it was lighter. Overall I still enjoyed it, but it's probably the weakest Wright movie I've seen.

Agreed, I loved the light tone of the first two acts, third act completely lost me.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

It's been a while since I've seen a movie shift tones as abruptly as Baby Driver does in its third act. Like wow it gets so much darker and intense than I was expecting, and to be honest, I kind of liked it more when it was lighter. Overall I still enjoyed it, but it's probably the weakest Wright movie I've seen. Fantastic editing, great cast, killer music. Really dug the appreciation/celebration of Americana and all those working class characters. Why the fuck doesn't Debora bail tho, like I enjoyed their chemistry and believed she liked him, but not that much lmao. The second shit goes down she should have realistically got out of there.

In retrospect I'm thinking a rewatch on Baby Driver will be necessary. I am thinking about that third act and the possibility that Wright wrote himself into a corner where the only way out was through, and it required some things of Baby that felt out of character. Whether he established enough of a bond between Baby and Deborah to keep him grounded (rather than have him completely slip into darkness) is an open question. There's no doubt that last 1/3 was crazy af and I enjoyed the action (even if it went a little Terminator), but it did throw doubt on a lot of what we'd seen in the first 2/3.

 

[Icolin]

I've seen Baby Driver twice and I still can't really wrap my head around what the fuck that last third was on about. Completely bizarre. I guess I enjoyed it though.

On another note, these Dunkirk reviews are something else. Obviously GAF impressions will give me a better idea of where the movie is at, but my god the reviews are glowing. Hard not to get really excited about it, based on the reviews and Nolan's spotless filmography.

 

[Cripplegate]

Worse than Debora not bailing when shit goes down is her promise of waiting for Baby "whenever he's ready" (that scene in the car), which is a character moment that becomes literalized when

Spoiler

she waits five years or whatever for when Baby gets out of prison

. It's a terrible ending, Debora is a nonsense character, and the relationship between her and Baby came close to sinking the film for me. It's a fun movie, aesthetically Wright was on point here, but that screenplay is the worst thing he has written.

 

[Blader]

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades
The third in the series and the first to disappoint. The first hour really drags, feeling both simultaneously aimless and overstuffed with plots that don't really gel together, and very little action to show for it. Kanbei makes for a cool rival/antagonist, but that his appearances are limited to the very beginning and very end leave him feeling like a superfluous character. This movie also has way too much rape. Rape played for audience titillation really grosses me out. What worked: the last half hour, which culminates with two great final battles. This is also the most spaghetti western-ish of the series so far, from the music that plays when Kanbei emerges at the end (striding out over the horizon like Clint Eastwood) to the Leone-esque closeups in a Mexican standoff scene. The last half hour helps balance out a bad first hour, for an overall ok entry in the franchise.
6/10

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril
The first one not to be directed by Kenji Misumi, and it gives these movies the breath of fresh air that they (or at least I) needed after the last one. Like Kanbei in the last one, we get a great new rival for Ogami here with Gunbei; unlike Kanbei, though, Gunbei is actually woven deeper into the plot, with a more personal connection to Ogami that explains why the Yagyu clan is trying to disgrace and kill him in the first place. The pacing is much improved here, with the action spread more evenly throughout. Oyuki is another strong addition to the cast, and while a topless female assassin screams of pandering on paper, it's a gimmick that surprisingly works for both the character and the overall story.

The whole thing culminates in a major battle between Ogami and dozens of Yagyu clansmen, and while the camerawork here is a little rougher than usual, for the first time Ogami seems to be in real trouble. Yes, he kills everyone and walks away with his life, but he takes a ton of damage in doing so, and the movie ends with him badly bleeding and wounded. While the second and third movies in this series had a more detached approach to Ogami -- he's hired to kill someone, he kills them, the end -- this one digs a little deeper and makes Ogami a little more human.
7/10

 

[AngmarsKing701]

I've seen Baby Driver twice and I still can't really wrap my head around what the fuck that last third was on about. Completely bizarre. I guess I enjoyed it though.

On another note, these Dunkirk reviews are something else. Obviously GAF impressions will give me a better idea of where the movie is at, but my god the reviews are glowing. Hard not to get really excited about it, based on the reviews and Nolan's spotless filmography.

Booked an IMAX 2D showing on Friday at 1:30. Very hyped to see this in IMAX.

 

[Icolin]

Booked an IMAX 2D showing on Friday at 1:30. Very hyped to see this in IMAX.

Interstellar in IMAX is still probably the greatest theatre experience I've ever had. The quality of the film is debatable (I personally loved it) but you can't argue that its scale is magnificent, doubly so in IMAX.

 

[SeanC]

War for the Planet of the Apes - Though a little too heavy handed at times, I understand why as Reeves was inspired by biblical epics and WWII films, there's a great human story (with apes!) going on here with some fantastic moments with Serkis and Harrelson in particular. They have some amazing scenes together that were entirely driven by dialogue and character, which is odd considering it's a large action movie. But that's the story of the entire trilogy - epic, but intimate.

Great visuals, an incredible sense of purpose only hindered by that heavy-hand of melodrama it can dip into at times, but still - this is probably some of the best series of films that is still criminally overlooked as the great films they are.

 

[Borgnine]

Le Trou: 8/10. After I watch something I go to Letterboxd to rate it and I always click the watched by x number of friends to see what other gaffers have rated it (peer pressure). Every now and then though I watch what is clearly a masterpiece and none of you have fucking watched it. It was like just Plainview and that's it. But then omgkitty watched it 2 days after me (he was already on some sort of Jacques Becker kick) and gave it a 9. Which is kind of weird. But all this to say why the fuck haven't you all watch this. It's a god damn classic.
Risk: 5/10. Sadly not based on the board game along with Battleship in the Hasboro Cinematic Universe, rather it's a portrait of an asshole. Right at the beginning Laura Poitras says she began filming this in 2011. I get the feeling that five years later she was like FUCK I don't actually have anything interesting here at all. I gotta release something though. It's not like I even really followed Assange over the years but I learned nothing new from this.
Lady Macbeth: 7/10. What would you do for that butt? I thought the concept was placing a woman with modern sensibilities in to this rigid old fashioned culture and watching her tear it apart. But then at some point it turns in to everyone's fucking psycho ex girlfriend. Kind of fun. And again, that butt.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Lady Macbeth: 7/10. What would you do for that butt? I thought the concept was placing a woman with modern sensibilities in to this rigid old fashioned culture and watching her tear it apart. But then at some point it turns in to everyone's fucking psycho ex girlfriend. Kind of fun. And again, that butt.

You should be on the marketing department for this movie. Added to my watch list. For science of course.

 

[Sean C]

WALL-E (2008): First rewatch in a while, and on my new Blu-ray. I still remember being blown away by this when I first saw it in theatres in 2008. I hadn't seen a Pixar film since The Incredibles four years earlier, having passed on Cars for lack of interest and not gotten around to seeing Ratatouille (I'd catch up with it on DVD some time later), and I hadn't really followed the film's advertising, making plans to see it only when the reviews started coming out a few days before release. There are moments here of the purest movie magic, such as WALL-E and EVE's little space waltz. The opening sequence is maybe Pixar's best, in my opinion, in terms of how striking it is. And itt's amazing how much emotion and personality they can work into the robot designs.

 

[C4Lukins]

I have a list, I am going to edit it over the next hour.

The Fury: An early Brian Depalma film. As is typical of the director, amazing scenes and shots with maybe not so good storytelling. I give it a 6 out of 10, because it is so unique, and you all can watch it on Netflix.

Tour De Pharmacy: It is only a 45 minute film at best, and is available with HBO GO. It tells the story of a Tour De France race that went to shit. And there is at least two dozen major actors participating. But the best joke, well you need to watchnit. It stars John Lithgow and John Travolta. Blow Out. A super fun experience.

 

[Divius]

For those who've seen them all, where does Spider-Man: Homecoming rank among the other movies? I watched the lot of them recently and am trying to decide if I should go see the new one..

 

[Fast Forward]

For those who've seen them all, where does Spider-Man: Homecoming rank among the other movies? I watched the lot of them recently and am trying to decide if I should go see the new one..

Personally, I think Homecoming is too fresh to rank it properly.

That being said, ATM:

1. 2
2. Homecoming
3. 1
4. Amazing
5. Amazing 2
6. 3

 

[Icolin]

For those who've seen them all, where does Spider-Man: Homecoming rank among the other movies? I watched the lot of them recently and am trying to decide if I should go see the new one..

It's well worth seeing. Probably on par with Raimi's first Spider-Man, and below Spider-Man 2.

 

[Zousi]

For those who've seen them all, where does Spider-Man: Homecoming rank among the other movies? I watched the lot of them recently and am trying to decide if I should go see the new one..

I'd say it's the best in terms of being the most accurate portrayal of the character from the comics (the CHARACTER, not the suit!). Tom Holland is also so perfectly cast. Seals the deal.

 

[Discotheque]

It's aiight. Don't like it nearly as much as the first two movies but if you're into Spider-Man it's worth a watch.

Tom Holland and Michael Keaton are good.

Don't really feel like watching it again though.

 

[Fancy Clown]

It's not as good as the first two Raimi movies, but not that far off from the first one. Definitely worth watching.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

It's aiight. Don't like it nearly as much as the first two movies but if you're into Spider-Man it's worth a watch.

Tom Holland and Michael Keaton are good.

Don't really feel like watching it again though.

It's not as good as the first two Raimi movies, but not that far off from the first one. Definitely worth watching.

This. The first two Raimi films are still the height, though it would have been interesting to see what Holland could have done with Raimi. Given how well he acted in Impossible, I think he has the range for the emotional lows of Uncle Ben dying. But I am glad they didn't retread that ground. It's a fairly light, safe portrayal of Spiderman vs. what we've seen on film before.

 

[True Savior]

Is this the thread where I can say I really like Spider-Man 3?

Haven't seen Homecoming though. This is what marvel did to me. Not watching fucking Spider-man on a theater.

 

[Fancy Clown]

Spider Man 3 is at least miles better than the Amazing Spider-Man

 

[Blader]

It's definitely better than the first Raimi movie. Compare the first scenes of Peter talking to MJ to the first scenes of Peter talking to Liz and tell me which sounds like a human conversation.

 

[Rhomega Beta]

I'd say Homecoming is the best of them, but I haven't seen the first two in years, I don't want to see 3 again, and I haven't seen the Amazings.

 

[Rei_Toei]

I started watching Logan because a good friend swore to me it'd be worth my time even if I am not really that into superhero movies. Not counting Deadpool this is the first X-Men or Wolverine movie I've watched - partially at least, because the neighbour's garden caught fire after half an hour of movie or so and I got distracted.

My only knowledge of X-Men stuff is that I once saw a couple minutes of Wolverine driving a cool motorbike and some old farmer couple getting fucked up and a scene of a kid bending some concentration camp gates. In Logan The Wolverine is not wearing a blue and yellow suit and is an alcoholic. Captain Picard is in a rusty steel dome and gets upset at things and there's an albino, some cyborg cartle baddies and a tween Wolverine that maybe is Wolverine's daughter because she has claws and Captain Picard is super excited about it. Also funky limo's and the world looks pretty fucked up. Will update when I watched the rest of the movie.

 

[smisk]

Despite being kinda jaded about the MCU lately I really enjoyed Spider-Man: Homecoming. Both Holland and Keaton are perfect in their roles, this is the first time Peter Parker has been believable as a high-schooler. Reading Ultimate Spider-Man in the early 2000s is what made me fall in love with the character, and this movie really reminded me of that series. It also really exemplified Peter being a very fallible hero, which I always enjoy, and the comedy was great as well.
That being said, none of the action scenes wowed me. I think my favorite was the montage at the beginning, the final battle didn't leave a huge impact. I do love the Vulture's design though. Above all Tom Holland is fantastic, and I can't wait to see more of him.

4/5

 

[kevin1025]

Who's excited for Valerian?! The heck with that Dunkirk nonsense.

Spoiler

Seeing both on Thursday, gonna be a good night.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Who's excited for Valerian?! The heck with that Dunkirk nonsense.

Spoiler

Seeing both on Thursday, gonna be a good night.

Dinner and dessert. Makes sense.

 

[Cripplegate]

Gonna catch Valerian in 3D fo sho.

Our Time Will Come (7.5/10) - I posted about this earlier in a thread somebody made for the movie.

To the above, I'd add that Eddie Peng was a little goofy at times and the tone of his action scenes clashed a bit with the quotidian drama. Deannie Yip is unsurprisingly good (but she was better in A Simple Life) but Xun Zhou was a huge surprise. I'm not really familiar with her work, I know I've seen her a few times (and I remember her being in Cloud Atlas), but she was amazing here. One of her scenes almost brought me to tears.

It's not a great film for the reasons I go into in the other thread, but I still enjoyed it for the combination of strong performances, Joe Hisaishi music, Nelson Yu cinematography (a Jia Zhangke regular) and Hui's knack for patient, "undramatic" drama (I'm not sure how to describe it, but scenes like Lan waiting at the pier all day, as the sun sets and we see her sitting there under the light, and the boat drifts in... it's beautiful, melancholic filmmaking).

There's one shot near the end that made me gasp, in no small part I'm sure to having a beautiful Hisaishi melody swelling up throughout the shot, but it also exemplifies all of the film's problems, as it's in service of the pointless framing device, ultimately adding nothing of substance to the film and contributing to the lack of a satisfying conclusion. But, yes, individual moments are wonderful, and I still really enjoyed it for those many scenes. The things Ann Hui shows us in this film (particularly the focus on women in this setting) are valuable. You have to take the good with the bad but it's worth it in this case.

 

[TissueBox]

Finally watched Cafe Society, and in the end despite being a mostly perfunctory Allen flick, it plays its part almost to the tee. KStew is also a real gem at this point. It's watchable and a digital-film knockout.

Seeing the similarities between it and La La Land, I couldn't help drawing comparisons though. And, to the sacrilege of some, no doubt, I would probably place Cafe Society over Chazelle's but that's mostly because I think LLL overreaches much more than Cafe Society underwhelms, and of the two mirroring, ruminating endings conveying that which were yearned for and never was to be, I felt Cafe Society's whisper was the most resonant.

Both still a pretty interesting look at old-school Hollywood/dream-chasers though.

 

[Puck Beaverton]

We Need to Talk About Kevin is perfection. I knew this, and yet rewatching it reminded me that no, this film is perfect. God I'm so ready for You Were Never Really Here.

 

[Ridley327]

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: The brooding 14-year-old's fanfic concept of what Star Wars should be these days. I'm not surprised to see praise for the film, as it is easily the most divergent any installment has ever gotten from its roots, but I'm of the crazy sensibility that simply being different isn't enough to be considered worthwhile, especially when a film like this comes along and wastes your time with an absolutely insipid cast of characters that wastes the great talent that they got for those roles. There is not a single moment in the film where I could buy into any of the relationships, and if this is what the improvement looks like after the film's reshoots, I tremble at the mere thought of how disastrous that aspect must have been originally.

Outside of knowing the name of Felicity Jones' character to be Jyn Erso, as it gets repeated so often that it must be so, I could not tell you anything about the other characters, including their names. It's not because I wasn't paying attention, far from it, but the film botches any attempt at making the rest of the cast interesting beyond their physical appearance that nothing stuck beyond that. Everyone involved behind the camera had nothing but time to work on that, too, since the thin story was covered in the opening crawl of a 40-year-old film and is stretched as thin as you expect it to be, and outside of making some members of the Rebellion more morally dubious to an effect that extends no further than the span of the scenes in which they are morally dubious, they simply have got nothing to say for themselves.

It doesn't help that the performances are almost universally flat, outside of the bright spot of Alan Tudyk's fun voice over work for Sarcastibot and, if for entirely unintended reasons, the single worst performance that Forest Whitaker has ever given as a Space Hobo, rendering scenes where we're supposed to be buying into the movie's idea of growing camaraderie completely and utterly inert. It all feels so unearned, to the point where an emotional beat in which Jyn is meant to be overwhelmed by an outpouring of support from the galaxy's most conveniently placed holo-message, courtesy of Yet Another Waste of Mads Mikkelsen in a Mainstream Hollywood Film, comes across more convincingly as her struggling with a bad bout of acid reflux than feeling love for the first time in what came across as decades. And once the film starts bumping the cast off, all of them get a moment of quiet reflection just in time for the audience to say goodbye to them. As it turns out, however, those moments of silence highlight just how little you know or care about any of them, and an even grimmer truth reveals itself: they never gave you a reason to in the first place.

There are other things to harp on the film about: the questionable use of older characters, in particular the digital resurrection of a long-dead actor in a film that didn't have problems with finding flesh-and-blood replacements otherwise; the troubles it has justifying itself with a central plot point designed to explain away a plot hole that no one could have ever possibly cared about in the 40 years it has allegedly been an issue, leaving the film without any actual retroactive impact in the overall canon of the story; truly dreadful callbacks to the older films that exist for no reason than to give excited preview audiences in the know something to cheer about for the 10 seconds that it matters before moving on to the next thing; and the horrendous pacing that sputters like a broken engine. There are also things genuinely worthy of praise, and though they're all technical feats, from the cinematography, use of scale (Gareth Edwards may not know how human beings are supposed to interact, but he has a brilliant eye for awe-inspiring spectacle), great production design that offers up a lot of much needed variety from the usual locales of the series and high quality CG effects, it does prove that the film isn't entirely without merit. However, what it does mess up is undoubtedly fatal to the entire product, leaving this film with a deadening sensation that it has no hope of overcoming, particularly as it strives for emotional payoffs it never earned and attempts to play them off as they have. It's a story that didn't need to be told, certainly not at over 2 hours of length and absolutely not in a film where about three-quarters of the run time is a complete waste of anyone's good time. There are certainly far more ineptly made blockbusters than this, but few that feel nearly as hollow as this one made me feel.

 

[thestopsign]

I went over to my girlfriends apartment tonight and she already was 5 minutes into Cape Fear so I ended up watching the rest of the movie with her. I had completely forgotten it was a Scorsese movie until the credits at the end. I enjoyed it as a thriller even if it is a bit dated at this point. Some really questionable directing in the movie which surprised me... what was up with the x-ray filter popping up constantly and even totally ruining the last shot? That was just odd. I also had to stop myself from questioning a lot of the plot and just enjoy it as a thriller.

 

[Rhomega Beta]

Memento: I do like this movie's form of reverse storytelling, and after watching it, I feel like I need to watch it again. I thought I read that at the end of the movie, it would tell the story forward so it would all make sense. Oh well, just gives me more reason to re-watch it. I am a bit confused though:

Spoiler

I know that he wrote down not to believe Teddy's lies, but was he really lying? Did Leonard burn the photos and write down the license plate as an excuse to keep hunting for a guy who's long dead?

 

[Puck Beaverton]

Rogue One is a bad movie.

 

[Icolin]

Rogue One is a bad movie.

On the surface, it's not bad. Like Godzilla 2014, it's aggressively mediocre, uninspired, and bland. But that CG bullshit and the REFERENCES drives it into insulting territory. Rubbish.

 

[Gnome Scat]

Rogue One is a bad movie.

While it's a fun movie for Star Wars fans, it's not a well done movie when resting on its own merits.

Also, what's up with Gareth Edwards making amazing trailers, and then having the final movie be insanely underwhelming?

 

[lordxar]

Memento: I do like this movie's form of reverse storytelling, and after watching it, I feel like I need to watch it again. I thought I read that at the end of the movie, it would tell the story forward so it would all make sense. Oh well, just gives me more reason to re-watch it. I am a bit confused though:

Spoiler

I know that he wrote down not to believe Teddy's lies, but was he really lying? Did Leonard burn the photos and write down the license plate as an excuse to keep hunting for a guy who's long dead?

Pretty much.

Spoiler

Teddy basically says he's using him at that point because he simply can't remember to stop...

 

[Lafiel]

In This Corner of the World



I've been waiting for this film for so long and it was worth every second. There's a lot that has been done with war films, even from civilian perspectives, about the tragedy of war, the horrors of war, and so on. But you know what? That's really not what this film is about at all. This is a film about the triumph of life, the power of innocence, and the manifestation of creativity and art even when suppressed and suffocated by the realities of the world. It's not a film that dwells on any particular thing, nor does it milk drama for emotional effect. It simply delivers life anecdotes as vignettes in the life of a girl as she becomes a woman - a string of memories to be cherished, viewed in the way memories often are: exaggerated, hazy, incomplete, or larger than life. The direction feels so effortless, the film just breezes by. The joy, the sadness, the hardships, everything is a celebration of what it is to struggle in life and yet find contentment in it. It might not be a message people like to find in escapism, but it's a vital theme in understanding how humanity works.

The art direction and animation style employed is very faithful to the source material, but in full color and animated it has a life of its own. There's a really strong sense of place in the film, which is important because it is very much about what place means to a person. Where you call home, what you are familiar with, who you are familiar with. Where you come from, and how people know you to be a stranger just from the way you speak. All the little details really add up to make this not just a story of Suzu, but of Eba and Kure as well. Most people know Hiroshima as a place which was struck by an Atomic bomb, but probably not many people know much about Hiroshima as a place itself, so it's nice to see effort put into detailing what these places were like, who lived there, and what people did there. In particular the naval arsenal industry that forms the bedrock of Kure is something that casts a dark shadow over the events of the story retrospectively. The characters in the story may be ignorant of what it means to the world at large, but knowing the nature of WW2 and looking back, it's impossible to not see how it would be dragged into the war directly.

What I really respect the narrative for is that it pulls no punches, but it never preaches. It is not a political story, it is not a guilt trip against war, it is not a sob story about how Japan also suffered, it is a tale of a woman's life who happened to live in that place at that time. There is no attempt to shy away from how nationalism is indoctrinated in the populace, or how the lack of great education in that period made many people choose the obvious choices of being domestic wives or working in the military. This is just life for them, and it wasn't something they labored over morally. Looking back, we can judge, and in part that's the point of examining society historically. But the story doesn't, and it any attempt to point the viewer in one direction or another are entirely with regards to characterizations. This is a story of the people and their little world, not the grander scale of what a world war meant.

Compared to stories like Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies, I much prefer stories like this and The Wind Rises. I'm not interested in tragedy to make a point, I'm interested in stories of how people might have lived, their ambitions, their loves, their loss, and them finding out for themselves in the end what that means for them. I love how the credits end with a special sequence where they thanked and credited every single backer for the original crowdfunding campaign which made the pilot film possible. It breaks my heart that in an industry as commercialized as anime, that no sponsor was willing to fund it without that show of support. Disgraceful!

I need to see this!

 

[zoukka]

It's definitely better than the first Raimi movie. Compare the first scenes of Peter talking to MJ to the first scenes of Peter talking to Liz and tell me which sounds like a human conversation.

I refuse to believe there are real humans that resemble the dorks in Homecoming.