Support NeoGAF

[Borgnine]

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword: 2/10. I'd never seen a Guy Ritchie movie. Never will again.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai: 4/10. I'm sorry but this was corny as fuck. MARLO STANFIELD OUT OF NOWHERE. Same thing happened in He's Got Game. Why do I keep watching this guy's movies? I've seen 5 and only kinda liked Lovers. Next up, Patterson I guess.
It Comes At Night: 7/10. I didn't really like Krisha. Like, I thought it was well made I just didn't enjoy watching it or spending time with those people. This guy definitely has some skill though. Great tension, can't wait to see what he can do with a script where something actually happens.
The Big Sick: 7/10. Charming. Too long but a few good jokes.
Time Voyager: Journey of Life: 3/10. Some sort of weird mashup of Planet Earth and a Winamp visualization. Stunning photography but completely pointless. He's fucking gone man. Game over.
A Ghost Story: 3/10. So I went to rate this on Letterboxd and saw all the GAF 7s 8s and 9s... but... I just can't, I'm sorry. I felt the peer pressure but we're too far apart. I just don't have the patience for this ponderous A24 shit anymore. I honestly don't think this would have connected with me when I was younger either but who knows. Just... I mean come on with the pie and everything.

edit: haha this filth is at the top of the page

 

[KraftyKrankins]

Just saw A Ghost Story as well.

Honestly, since my take from it could probably be summarized to a simple 7/10 I'll say something different about it.


... I wasn't the only one strangely aroused by the scene where Rooney was eating the pie, right?

 

[RespectThySole]

Silence of the Lambs - 9/10. Great performances by the two leads especially Anthony Hopkins. Really liked the score as well.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - 5/10 Standard MCU fare.

 

[brianjones]

she didn't even eat the crust of the pie

weak

 

[Boogs31]

I find it interesting that a lot of people here hated It Comes At Night, but I it's one of the higher rated horror movies of the year so far (according to Rotten Tomatoes).

Probably gonna check out when it hits physical.

It's definitely not awful. Especially if you factor in the technical side of things. It's well made, the cinematography is excellent, the director understands how to properly construct a scene. The dialogue is believable and the performances are solid. The problem is that it's boring, it lacks a plot and the characters don't really have distinct personalities. The atmosphere is okay and is really the only thing that adds any entertainment value.

 

[kevin1025]

Resident Evil: Afterlife

It looks like someone watched The Matrix Reloaded.

Resident Evil: Retribution

It looks like someone watched Hong Kong cinema.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

It looks like someone watched Attack of the Clones but fell asleep and so just went by the title. Which also works on Retribution, but I wanted to keep that motif going.

When you pull the clone garbage close to ten times in your series, both for yanking the audience and because of fixing plot issues with it, and then give Alice powers but now you take them away and now she has them again, you can't expect me to care. The movies have some good action in there, and some beautiful shots, but it's riddled with insanity.

I ruined my evening, but now my watch is over. Onto the Phantasm series... I pray it's more fun.

 

[More_Badass]

It's definitely not awful. Especially if you factor in the technical side of things. It's well made, the cinematography is excellent, the director understands how to properly construct a scene. The dialogue is believable and the performances are solid. The problem is that it's boring, it lacks a plot and the characters don't really have distinct personalities. The atmosphere is okay and is really the only thing that adds any entertainment value.

How does it lack a plot? That doesn’t make any sense

 

[Jombie]

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 6/10

Not as bad as I remember, but completely understand the frustration with it. I hate how it needlessly turns Bobby into a killer. Sheryl Lee is amazing in it.

 

[Count Dookkake]

.

 

[Krev]

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 6/10

Not as bad as I remember, but completely understand the frustration with it. I hate how it needlessly turns Bobby into a killer. Sheryl Lee is amazing in it.

I think it's because they were trying to explain why James says that he heard from Laura that Bobby killed someone in the pilot.

 

[Jombie]

I think it's because they were trying to explain why James says that he heard from Laura that Bobby killed someone in the pilot.

Yeah, I just hate that Bobby goes from a teen goon to a cop killer.

 

[Baroquemantic]

Macbeth

That was friggin great. Don't think I've seen a movie like this before. A real audiovisual treat with some fantastic performances. One of Fassbender's best. Cotillard was amazing as well.

To be a little critical, I feel like the film was a bit too rushed. I wouldn't have minded a longer runtime.

8.5/10

--

Oh, and good looking out with the recommendation, Divius.

 

[thepotatoman]

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is a very interesting movie. It very perfectly portrays many of the faults of society that are very true to this day, and yet ends with what feels like the filmmakers see as an optimistic and positive message, that's potentially very dystopic in execution.

"At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk."

That all sounds great, but when most violent actions have both sides claim the other as the aggressor who gets to determine who is right? A robot who scans brains for whoever had the first thought of violent intent? That sounds like a pretty good deal for oppressors already in control. It's good violence is no longer an option to them either, but it's not like violence is the only form of oppression. How much are people who already have a monopoly on force really affected by the absence of it? It's like the most extreme version of absence of tension without presence of justice there could be.

Sorry, just had to rant somewhere about this when it seems so universally praised without caveats about that. It is a really great movie, it's just that final soap box speech that really annoys me. I guess it could be excused for that message for being made in 1951, but that doesn't excuse everyone reviewing it seeming to ignore that issue to this day.

 

[mariachi507]

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 6/10

Not as bad as I remember, but completely understand the frustration with it. I hate how it needlessly turns Bobby into a killer. Sheryl Lee is amazing in it.

Well it's basically stated early in the series that Bobby killed a guy and it was self defense. I actually think that FWWM along with The Missing Pieces add a lot to his character. It makes certain scenes from season 2 more poignant.

I'm with you on Sheryl Lee. She was always a highlight on the series, but she took it to another level in FWWM.

 

[Boogs31]

How does it lack a plot? That doesn’t make any sense

I think you're taking me too literally. By lacking a plot I was implying that it's very simplistic. Every movie technically has a plot, it's just a matter of how intricate it is. I can sum up the plot in several sentences.

Spoiler

Family in future virus containing world lives in isolation, child has fever dreams. They encounter other family, and after some hesitation, allow them into their home. Go to get additional supplies and kill strangers, mistrust ensues. Virus infects other families son, which leads to deaths and spreading of infection.

That's pretty much everything that happens. It's not that complex. I wouldn't even care about the simplistic plot if it was scary or if it had interesting characters but it lacked both.

 

[Divius]

Borgnine, no interest in lock stock or snatch? Why would you start with Arthur mayynne?!

 

[More_Badass]

I think you're taking me too literally. By lacking a plot I was implying that it's very simplistic. Every movie technically has a plot, it's just a matter of how intricate it is. I can sum up the plot in several sentences.

Spoiler

Family in future virus containing world lives in isolation, child has fever dreams. They encounter other family, and after some hesitation, allow them into their home. Go to get additional supplies and kill strangers, mistrust ensues. Virus infects other families son, which leads to deaths and spreading of infection.

That's pretty much everything that happens. It's not that complex. I wouldn't even care about the simplistic plot if it was scary or if it had interesting characters but it lacked both.

I don't see what the problem is. You can sum up hundreds (thousands?) of stories and movies in a sentence or two. A plot being simple isn't a narrative flaw, and a plot being complicated isn't inherently a sign of depth; if anything, the very limited perspective and focus here makes the story more interesting.

And I also feel like the movie subverts the typical post-apocalyptic perspective, through which characters we follow as the protagonists

Spoiler

Basically in most stories, we would have been following the other family as protagonists, rather than the paranoid ruthless too-far-gone survivalist family. We see it all the time in post apocalyptic fiction; the group is searching for supplies, finds a seemingly friendly group that takes them in, soon they realize that the group that sheltered them is twisted or darker in some way, they try to leave or escape and then things go wrong. In another story, we would have been in the room with the other family: "This is crazy. I don't feel safe here anymore. These people are dangerous; we have to go, right now."

Except here, we're following the ruthlessly paranoid family who feel like they have to kill them, who can't let them leave, because they'll come back and take their stuff, that's what always happens, this is the only way to stay safe

We also can't assume that the other family's son was actually infected.

 

[Glass Shark]

I’ve been giving my MoviePass a real workout, and I saw Wind River last night. Thought it was great. I really enjoy films like this that can tell a small, gripping, personal story that brings real suspense. I had a few quibbles with some of the cinematography and music choices (the few times vocal stuff is used really took me out of the experience) but overall it was an excellent film.

Weird and distracting mistake during one scene in the movie, though. (Minor spoiler) Did anyone notice

Spoiler

that during the autopsy scene, the “corpse” was very clearly breathing the whole time? I thought I was going crazy at first but I kept watching and you can definitely see the flayed open chest moving up and down steadily.

Hard to believe no one caught that in editing.

This was the closest I think I’ve ever come to seeing a movie totally “blind.” I may have seen a trailer for this several months ago, but if so, I completely forgot about it. The only thing I knew going in was the title and the poster (and thus, that Jeremy Renner starred in it). It was a really good way to go into the movie. The whole time I was getting vibes of Hell or High Water, and now reading more about the movie after the fact I know I was spot-on.

It was also my first experience going to a theater with reserved seating. We just recently got theaters that did this in the past year, and even then it’s only a few auditoriums in a few locations. For this particular experience it was bizarre. I was seeing the movie at 10:30 at night, and the kiosk only let me select from four seats, most of the others were blocked out. I was surprised thinking “how is this random showing of a small movie late on a Wednesday night full?” But it actually wasn’t. I ended up being the only person in the theater, but for some reason the only reserved seats I could pick were down in front on the far right side of the theater. I was bummed because I usually like to sit in the very back in the middle. When showtime hit and no one else had showed up, I just got up and moved. So that was odd.

This was a newly remodeled AMC theater with plush electric reclining seats, which was nice, but it was also a full dine-in theater. The wait staff came by a few minutes before showtime and asked me if I wanted to order anything and I declined, but I know I will definitely be avoiding seeing movies in these kind of auditoriums in the future. The way it’s set up, there is just no way for people’s food to get delivered without it being incredibly distracting. I find it hard to relate to people who would want to make that their typical moviegoing experience.

 

[shaneo632]

Gerald's Game getting good reviews so far! Gonna hit it up tomorrow morning as soon as I wake up

 

[IronRinn]

Had never heard of it until Netflix and Amazon recommended it to me but A Dark Song was really good and contained some genuinely creepy moments. The ending was perhaps not quite as strong as the first 2/3rds but not so much that it brought the film down. Glad I took a chance.

Still kind of want to go see mother! again.

 

[UrbanRats]

Can I just say that UrbanRats has the best opinions. I can't remember the last we weren't on the exact same page regarding film. Don't act like you don't know what I'm taking about. <3

Sad to see you disagree with my compelling Flat Earth theories.

Gerald's Game getting good reviews so far! Gonna hit it up tomorrow morning as soon as I wake up

The trailer for this looked hilarious, but hope they'll explain why she can't just break the bed and get free.

 

[sephiroth7x]

Passengers (2008) - 4/10 - Pretty mediocre to be honest... decent enough performances but lacking any real imagination or conviction on what it wanted to do. Played it really safe.

Deathnote (2017) - 6/10 - Can't fault the performances... though the narrative and the tone it sets is really strange. At some times it seems to want to deliver horror elements but then turns itself into a Final Destination parody. It's hard to really care about

Spoiler

L cracking due to his handler being Deathnoted

because its all over tonally. Not as awful as was being made out though.

I.T. (2016) - 3/10 - Pierce Brosnan sounds like he is trying to imitate a really bad Irish accent which is amazing considering he is Irish. A straight down the line, obvious movie that really doesn't deliver anything at all... it is pure background noise.

 

[Count Dookkake]

Had never heard of it until Netflix and Amazon recommended it to me but A Dark Song was really good and contained some genuinely creepy moments. The ending was perhaps not quite as strong as the first 2/3rds but not so much that it brought the film down. Glad I took a chance.

Oh, that's out?

Saw it at a fest and loved it.

A fairly unique premise and execution.

 

[Blader]

Ghost Dog does suck.


Lawrence of Arabia
Rewatch, but on 70mm. Despite being a 50ish-something-year-old print, it still looks pretty fantastic, though I was disappointed that the theater wasn't able to get one of the newly struck prints (though they did tell us that new 70mm prints for 2001 were being made for 50th anniversary screenings next year, which is pretty cool). Anyway, what's to say? This movie is an epic that's actually deserving of the word in every way.
9/10

The Shootist
John Wayne's final film and his best performance. The fact that he was sick with cancer at the time of shooting -- and died a few years later -- can't help but add some extra weight to the fact that Wayne is playing...an aging gunfighter who is dying of cancer. Siegel crafts a couple good looking shootouts, and Wayne and Lauren Bacall have a nice rapport together. The movie itself isn't that great, and the production is kind of cheap-ish looking, but Wayne's performance is so poignant and so good that nothing else here really matters.
7/10

Mulholland Drive
Rewatch. I had seen this once before and had a really bizarre experience watching it. Now that I've got the entirety of Twin Peaks + Blue Velvet under my belt, I realize now that all the weird things and ticks that I couldn't make heads or tails of are intentional Lynchisms, and they go down way smoother now. A really compelling and incredibly well-shot noir story, with a final act that still kicks ass.
8/10

 

[shaneo632]

The Book of Henry (2017) - 3.4/10. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Between this and that cruel babysitter death scene from Jurassic World I'm pretty sure Colin Trevorrow is an alien lifeform who is attempting to replicate human behaviour on-screen but has apparently never met one, and has zero understanding of tone.

What begins as a fairly harmless if still relatively irritating too-cool-for-school indie dramedy with overly witty characters whose every utterance is a witty turn of phase...transforms into a fucking abominable dramatic trainwreck by the mid-point.

Manipulative twists, random switch-ups between comedy and dark drama, atrocious dialogue, and a clear misunderstanding of what's sweet and emotionally resonant and what's diabolically cringe-worthy, smug and patronising.

The performances are all pretty good to be fair; Naomi Watts is trying like FUCK to sell this but what the hell can they do against such terrible writing and direction? I mean, who went into this film expecting to see

Spoiler

Watts holding a fucking sniper rifle and preparing to murder Hank from Breaking Bad? lmao

I basically recommend watching this at least once just because it's not boring and I was pretty fascinated by how awful the second half was. I drank profusely through this and did little to help. Seriously, how did Trevorrow direct

Spoiler

the scene where the brother showers the audience in his dead brother's ashes

with a straight face?

Thank FUCK Trevorrow isn't directing Episode IX anymore. Christ.

 

[old]

Kingsman Golden Circle
Okay action movie. Very few laughs but neat action sequences.

Mother!
Complete mindfuck. Would watch again. Not what I expected. Less horror more social commentary on women and environmentalism.

It
Great movie. Loved the depth of it. Made the characters real and showed real terrors normal people face everyday.

Rough Night
Terrible movie. Felt like it never ended. Ended up fast forwarding through parts. Nothing redeeming about the writing.

American Assassin
Solid action movie. Not groundbreaking or memorable. But enjoyed the ride.

 

[More_Badass]

Blade Runner (Final Cut)

I had tried to check out Blade Runner a few years ago, and it didn't click with me. Couldn't even finish it. But with the new movie coming, I decided to try again (Final Cut) and I ended up really enjoying it.

For all the talk of it being a slow burn film and being "boring", Blade Runner moved faster than I was expecting, and the slower parts and dialogue were never dull. It helps that the plot is so small and intimate, practically a Deckard slice-of-life. Just dropping you into the story of Deckard and the replicants keeps the pacing moving at a solid pace right from the opening. The story of Blade Runner feels like a small one happening among hundreds in this sprawling metropolis, while the world-building and details make the scope feel so much more grander.

Rutger Hauer gave an excellent performance as Roy, charming and cultured yet menacing and haunted, and Ford as Deckard was great too, if kind of dry. I think I liked him more due to my soft spot for sci-if noir and characters like him, rather than his characterization. But still Ford made him relatable and personable.

But Blade Runner's ultimate character is its world, and the atmosphere and sense of place is still amazing today. Crowded, dank, claustrophobic decay, rundown and rain-drenched. A lot of cyberpunk depictions get some of those aspects right - the rain, the neon, the decay - but Blade Runner has a realism and density that I think other depictions in film and games have failed to capture. The grounded approach of the future and future tech also worked to make Blade Runner stand out; many other cyberpunk works I've seen/read/played tend to go very heavy of the augmentations and “high tech megacorp crushing the people”, while Blade Runner feels more realistic in its depiction of the future

My main criticism after watching was that romantic connection between Deckard and Rachel felt completely unearned and had none of the emotional weight needed to work as a thematic element like the narrative wanted.

 

[shaneo632]

Rewatched Wind River (2017). Really good film though there's one scene that still plays really off to me -

Spoiler

When the victim's mother is just cutting her wrists in the bedroom and nobody seems to give a shit. The reactions don't seem right and I think it might be some amateur direction on Sheridan's part.

 

[kevin1025]

The Book of Henry (2017) - 3.4/10. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Between this and that cruel babysitter death scene from Jurassic World I'm pretty sure Colin Trevorrow is an alien lifeform who is attempting to replicate human behaviour on-screen but has apparently never met one, and has zero understanding of tone.

What begins as a fairly harmless if still relatively irritating too-cool-for-school indie dramedy with overly witty characters whose every utterance is a witty turn of phase...transforms into a fucking abominable dramatic trainwreck by the mid-point.

Manipulative twists, random switch-ups between comedy and dark drama, atrocious dialogue, and a clear misunderstanding of what's sweet and emotionally resonant and what's diabolically cringe-worthy, smug and patronising.

The performances are all pretty good to be fair; Naomi Watts is trying like FUCK to sell this but what the hell can they do against such terrible writing and direction? I mean, who went into this film expecting to see

Spoiler

Watts holding a fucking sniper rifle and preparing to murder Hank from Breaking Bad? lmao

I basically recommend watching this at least once just because it's not boring and I was pretty fascinated by how awful the second half was. I drank profusely through this and did little to help. Seriously, how did Trevorrow direct

Spoiler

the scene where the brother showers the audience in his dead brother's ashes

with a straight face?

Thank FUCK Trevorrow isn't directing Episode IX anymore. Christ.

The

Spoiler

"my son wants me to murder the neighbor"

third act is one of the biggest left turns in a long while. I was just in awe at the insanity.

 

[More_Badass]

Rewatched Wind River (2017). Really good film though there's one scene that still plays really off to me -

Spoiler

When the victim's mother is just cutting her wrists in the bedroom and nobody seems to give a shit. The reactions don't seem right and I think it might be some amateur direction on Sheridan's part.

Spoiler

I never got the sense that people didnt give a shit. Like, the husband was clearly devastated

 

[Boogs31]

I don't see what the problem is. You can sum up hundreds (thousands?) of stories and movies in a sentence or two. A plot being simple isn't a narrative flaw, and a plot being complicated isn't inherently a sign of depth; if anything, the very limited perspective and focus here makes the story more interesting.

And I also feel like the movie subverts the typical post-apocalyptic perspective, through which characters we follow as the protagonists

Spoiler

Basically in most stories, we would have been following the other family as protagonists, rather than the paranoid ruthless too-far-gone survivalist family. We see it all the time in post apocalyptic fiction; the group is searching for supplies, finds a seemingly friendly group that takes them in, soon they realize that the group that sheltered them is twisted or darker in some way, they try to leave or escape and then things go wrong. In another story, we would have been in the room with the other family: "This is crazy. I don't feel safe here anymore. These people are dangerous; we have to go, right now."

Except here, we're following the ruthlessly paranoid family who feel like they have to kill them, who can't let them leave, because they'll come back and take their stuff, that's what always happens, this is the only way to stay safe

We also can't assume that the other family's son was actually infected.

I'm saying the movie wasn't entertaining to me because it had a simplistic plot, AND it wasn't scary, AND it didn't have fleshed out characters. If it only lacked one of those things, I probably would have liked it. So just arguing that the plot being simplistic was not a problem for you doesn't really act as a rebuttal. I don't mind a simple plot, Lost in Translation is my favorite movie, but that movie has a really great atmosphere and really in depth characters that make you ignore the simplistic nature of the plot.

I respect your thoughts on the whole different perspective angle and I agree that was a neat idea, but that didn't add anything to the entertainment value, at least for me.

 

[Icolin]

The

Spoiler

"my son wants me to murder the neighbor"

third act is one of the biggest left turns in a long while. I was just in awe at the insanity.

I think this gif from Hot Fuzz sums up my reaction to the third act quite succinctly.

 

[lordxar]

It Lives Again Mutant babies have returned! This time there are three. I liked the first entry in this series but this was kind of boring for me. It really felt like Day of the Dead with mutant babies instead of zombies too so that didn't really help at all.

Witchboard I've wanted to see this over the years and somehow never did so I took care of it and I really wasn't impressed. It's got a cool enough story. Have a Oujia session, get haunted, possessed and murdered but its execution left a lot to be desired. The acting was bad. There were some cool death scenes though and you get to see Tawny Kitaen's boobs for a minute. So there's a bonus. What I did really like was some of the Evil Dead camera work where someone is experiencing insanity or a bell ringing it felt like some Raimi work in there.

The Serpent and the Rainbow I could have done with more zombies. Like I've read over the years that Haitian zombies are more mind controlled than living dead. I sort of expected a horde of those but this was more of a story about the guy searching for them and finding weird hallucinations along the way. I really dug the production of this and when things go nuts at the end its spectacular. I just wasn't completely there with the voodoo stuff.

 

[KraftyKrankins]

The

Spoiler

"my son wants me to murder the neighbor"

third act is one of the biggest left turns in a long while. I was just in awe at the insanity.

Christ, I always forget about this.

 

[TissueBox]

I looove Collateral's ending.

 

[RespectThySole]

Raiders of the Lost Ark - 10/10. One of the greatest action flicks I’ve ever seen.(top 5 at least) Perfect pacing and score.

 

[UrbanRats]

Murder on the Orient Express, i managed to go all these years without having this spoiled for me, thanks to my profound lack of common knowledge and general ignorance, but after i saw the trailer for that new version coming out, i figured why not?
I like Lumet, because his films are always incredibly lively, yet maintain a level of grit to them, a texture.
This was a more constrained work (like, literally) and probably why i didn't quite love it as much as something like Network, but it still managed to maintain something, of those elements.
I mean just on a physical level, people are constantly bumping into shit, and each other, them being on a train and all.
That alone could've been enough reason for a murder, in my opinion.
But yeah, i liked it. The way Poirot

Spoiler

catches Bergman red handed,

was quite clever.

 

[duckroll]

I looove Collateral's ending.

I love the entire movie. Pure atmosphere.

 

[overcast]

Gonna watch American Made, Battle of the Sexes and Stronger over the next week. Do any of them look particularly good to me? No but I'll moviepass every single day I don't care.

 

[shaneo632]

Spoiler

I never got the sense that people didnt give a shit. Like, the husband was clearly devastated

Spoiler

Yeah, but why are they all just sat outside and letting her do it? Someone tried to explain to me that it's a cultural thing and certain tribes have a different view to self-harm,
but I dunno man, it didn't click for me.

Having a film day today, gonna watch Gerald's Game and Our Souls at Night on Netflix, then go see Goodbye Christopher Robin and Flatliners at the cinema. Maybe cram in Home Again as well if I have time.

 

[thenexus6]

The Usual Suspects
Not seen this for maybe five years +. It's really really great, and knowing the big twist kinda made it a fun watch seeing how it all plays out. That film scene man.. Masterful.

Forgot how good that main theme is too

 

[shaneo632]

Gerald's Game (2017) - 7.3/10. Easily one of the best, if not the best, genre film Netflix Original, and one of the better Stephen King movies in recent memory.

Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood are terrific in this stripped-down psychological thriller, and Mike Flanagan delivers easily his most taut direction to date.

There are some super, super fucked up things in this movie, especially

Spoiler

a revolting sequence near the end where Gugino slides her de-skinned wrist out of the handcuffs

, and to that end it'll probably have you wincing and cringing quite a bit.

The ending didn't quite work for me but it was ultimately just a post-script to the glorious mayhem of the proceeding 90 minutes. A credit to Netflix and a really entertaining film all-around.

EDIT: Also just watched a new short film, Long Shot on Netflix, about a guy who got acquitted of murder thanks to being caught in a Curb Your Enthusiasm outtake. Only 40 minutes long but really compelling. Shame it wasn't a full feature.

Off to watch 3 movies at the cinema now -- Goodbye Christopher Robin, Home Again and Flatliners. Only a few minutes in-between each, nice and smooth.

 

[Window]

Pusher I & II: I'm gonna be playing Sad Disco all night. Manages to find a fine balance between being entertaining and excruciating, which is something so many films dealing with crime and violence seem to miss. Loved the grungy 90s aesthetic of the first but II is where Refn's modern stylings come to surface. In some ways I prefer the simple derivative tale told in the first but it lacks as compelling a central character as found in the second with Mads delivering a very good performance there. Both start slow and tighten the screws as the end approaches but those beginning sections perfectly portray the prosaic empty unfulfilled lives these character lead. That they bear so much risk to retain such a lifestyle really underscores the tragedy and dark irony of a life of crime. Onto III.

 

[old manatee]

The new Flatliners is like a Final Destination movie that takes itself seriously. Bad movie. Fuck you up.

 

[shaneo632]

Just got home from my cinema triple bill. Knackered.

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) - 6.2/10. The writing was on the wall about this one being "just OK" considering it forewent the festival circuit despite seeming like card-carrying Oscar bait on the surface.

It is the definition of a mixed bag; Domhnall Gleeson and Kelly Macdonald are very, very good and carry the film through many of its lesser moments, and Ben Smithard's cinematography is really gorgeous; it reminded me a lot of the lensing for The King's Speech.

Sadly the script and direction are rather heavy-handed and on-the-nose, almost to the point of unintentional comedy, particularly as it pertains to Milne's post-war PTSD and the origin story for Winnie the Pooh and his pals.

Also the time leaps in the third act felt massively rushed, which undercut the emotional potential. Overall, not bad, but not something I'd ever bother to watch again, and certainly not the awards player many anticipated.

Home Again (2017) - 4.1/10. I found it rather funny/ironic that there's a line in this film about "movies you watch on your smartphone and forget about before it even finishes", which is pretty much the definition of this actual movie.

Though it touts a slightly more interesting premise than most studio rom-coms these days thanks to the filmmaker angle, it ultimately still succumbs to its very TV sitcom-esque contrived narrative and horrendously overlit cinematography.

Reese Witherspoon is charming as usual, and getting to see Michael Sheen wearing a Hello Kitty plaster might be worth the price of admission alone, but ultimately it's a shallow film with little new to say about the human experience in any way.

Flatliners (2017) - 3.7/10. I don't think anyone expected this to be any good, and despite the studio's insistence that this is a sequel to the 1990 cult classic, it is for all intents and purposes a flaccid reboot/remake.

Let's get the good out of the way first; the performances are decent, especially Ellen Page, and it does introduce a few new ideas to the mythology rather than literally straight-remaking the original. It did also surprise me with one third-act event that I didn't see coming at all.

Spoiler

Ellen Page randomly gets killed by one of her hallucinations at the end of act 2

That's pretty much it for the good. The characters don't behave realistically at all, the CGI-infused hallucinations are fucking atrocious, there are countless unintentionally comical moments, some really ill-placed intentional humour, and simply little reason for it to exist.

Kiefer Sutherland's cameo

Spoiler

as a grey-haired doctor

was more distractingly amusing than anything, but at least it did break up the monotony.

 

[Ixion090]

So now I'm going to rewatch The Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended, in blu-ray. I am a happy man. An obvious 10/10 for me.

After that I plan on watching MacBeth (2015).

 

[robotrock]

The Book of Henry (2017) - 3.4/10. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Between this and that cruel babysitter death scene from Jurassic World I'm pretty sure Colin Trevorrow is an alien lifeform who is attempting to replicate human behaviour on-screen but has apparently never met one, and has zero understanding of tone.

What begins as a fairly harmless if still relatively irritating too-cool-for-school indie dramedy with overly witty characters whose every utterance is a witty turn of phase...transforms into a fucking abominable dramatic trainwreck by the mid-point.

Manipulative twists, random switch-ups between comedy and dark drama, atrocious dialogue, and a clear misunderstanding of what's sweet and emotionally resonant and what's diabolically cringe-worthy, smug and patronising.

The performances are all pretty good to be fair; Naomi Watts is trying like FUCK to sell this but what the hell can they do against such terrible writing and direction? I mean, who went into this film expecting to see

Spoiler

Watts holding a fucking sniper rifle and preparing to murder Hank from Breaking Bad? lmao

I basically recommend watching this at least once just because it's not boring and I was pretty fascinated by how awful the second half was. I drank profusely through this and did little to help. Seriously, how did Trevorrow direct

Spoiler

the scene where the brother showers the audience in his dead brother's ashes

with a straight face?

Thank FUCK Trevorrow isn't directing Episode IX anymore. Christ.

this movie really is incredible dude. we are lucky to have received it

 

[shaneo632]

Yeah, I would openly recommend it to all my friends who love bad/weird movies. It certainly ain't boring.

 

[nachum00]

Well it's basically stated early in the series that Bobby killed a guy and it was self defense. I actually think that FWWM along with The Missing Pieces add a lot to his character. It makes certain scenes from season 2 more poignant.

I'm with you on Sheryl Lee. She was always a highlight on the series, but she took it to another level in FWWM.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 6/10

Not as bad as I remember, but completely understand the frustration with it. I hate how it needlessly turns Bobby into a killer. Sheryl Lee is amazing in it.

Well if you consider The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer canon then Bobby killed at least two people.

So you have an official book, the prequel movie and even the show itself referencing him as a killer. IDK sounds to me like he was always written as a killer.

 

[Sean C]

The Last Detail (1973): It's easy to see why Richard Linklater was interested in adapting the sequel to this, because this film anticipates the loosely episodic, conversational narrative that Linklater has made his bread and butter. It's a neat snapshot of early 1970s America, as well. As with a lot of older movies, it's interesting to see familiar actors in earlier stages of their careers, such as a just-getting-started Carol Kane in a small role as a prostitute.

Polytechnique (2009): Denis Villeneuve's penultimate French-language move before Incendies granted him a passport to Hollywood. The massacre at l'Ecole Polytechnique is an enduringly famous tragedy in Canada, though its scope for dramatization is in a lot of ways rather limited. Effective, for what it is, and Lepine's misogynistic manifesto has plenty of echoes in the online troll culture that has flourished in the decade since this film was made (and the thirty years since the actual shooting).

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008): Sally Hawkins is aggressively charming in this. The film itself is fun, though for a nearly two-hour running time it's a bit light on plot.