Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Hitchcock (2012, Gervasi)

An exercise in complete and utter uselessness. A word used by Hitch himself in the film several times is "stillborn", and that's pretty much the best description for this time-waster. It's basically an assembly of random trivia, with a feeble backbone of a supposed story about relationships with artists (10 minutes of Huston's Moulin Rouge gives us more on this topic than Gervasi's entire film). Even My Week with Marilyn was more robust. Hopkins and Mirren are good... in fact, I can't really fault the cast at all, apart from their acceptance of such thankless roles in such a pointless film. James D'Arcy's impersonation of Norman Bates is very good... not sure how good an impersonation of Anthony Perkins it is, but anyway. A most avoidable piece of work.

Pushing Hands (1992, Lee)

Ang Lee's debut, and it's something of a spin on Make Way for Tomorrow/Tokyo Story, I guess. It's pretty solid, although it drags in places and is a little bit scattershot tonally in some ways, it is a satisfying film, and has some through lines with Lee's later work, particularly deeply troubled domestic lives that are given a facade of being functional. I don't think I'd ever go back to it, but I think it nestles quite nicely in the middle-tier of Ang Lee's canon.

 

No one, it's just a punishment from the Typo God when swyping from my phone and posting without proofreading. The word I meant was "dissapointing".

 

Mikey...I meant "dissapointing" and got "disobeying". Don't be such a pain, dude.

 

I really need to see this again. Only saw it once during the Toronto Film Festival.

 

Drive. Excellent film well worthy of the hype. Gosling is great in it and the car chase scenes, despite being few and far between, are thrilling and Gosling puts in a great performance as the Driver. The only disappointment I had was in the soundtrack, which had been something I'd heard a lot of praise for. I was very disappointed to discover that said soundtrack was actually a Spotify playlist.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (English). Not read the book or seen the Swedish version, so I've no idea how this compares, but as a film I thought it was excellent. I'm a huge fan of murder mysteries and whodunnits. Combine that with David Fincher (who by all accounts did a fantastic job on Zodiac) and you're onto a winner. I thought both Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara were great as Blomqvist and Salander and actually had a great deal of chemistry. I actually watched this one with my girlfriend and, after she'd seen Tinker Tailor with me she was apprehensive, but thankfully this one we both enjoyed and are really hoping that they get around to filming the second and third parts soon.

You really should. It's an excellent film if you're into something a bit more cerebral.

 

Is the director commentary still available for download somewhere?

 

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

 

Just got finished watching Django Unchained. As far as I'm concerned it's his best film since Pulp Fiction. The script is top notch and whilst remaining noticeably Tarantino-esque, it manages to avoid some of the pitfalls of his later works that suffered from a degree of self-awareness. Jamie Foxx is great in the titular role and Leonardo Di Caprio is captivating as Calvin Candie. But the Academy was right to give the Best Supporting Actor nomination to Christoph Waltz, who plays far more nuanced and subtle character than Candie as Dr Schultz. Definitely worth a watch. For a Tarantino movie it's not that violent either.

 

I rented Dredd last night. My opinion of it improved slightly on second viewing. I felt a bit cheated paying to see it in a theater. But it has some admirable low-budget qualities that play well for late night rental. At the end of the day, it's a poor man's pastiche of other, better movies, with a tired plot and an uninteresting villain, but it looks pretty darn good for a $50 million movie. The future city was compelling and they certainly made the most of low end procedural particle effects to underscore the epic level of violence. And Olivia Thirlby, an actor who like Carl Urban should not have to go slumming like this, is good enough to elevate the movie into something slightly watchable.

 

Gangster Squad (2013, Fleischer)

Appalling. Horrendously violent and foul-mouthed, to the point where the only audience adolescent enough to get a kick out of this monstrosity probably isn't allowed to see it! I hope this fine cast was well-paid, because anyone who cares about their craft wouldn't have wanted in on this. Brolin fails to understand that he's not in a real movie, Penn goes to 11 on every scene and makes you yearn for the days of Harvey Keitel's amusing but still menacing take on Mickey Cohen, Gosling is bad to the point where I have to assume that it's his way of sabotaging a project he has utter contempt for, and Stone just doesn't cut it. Fleischer is stylistically confused to the point of incoherence, and I don't think I've ever seen Dion Beebe turn in photography this bad. The worst offender, however, is the screenwriter, Beall - every single set-up he puts in there has only one possible pay-off, and sure enough the ones that he can be bothered paying off happen in exactly the way you would expect. It's a complete and utter disaster by my reckoning, and a terrible way to start off 2013's release calendar.

Ted (2012, MacFarlane)

Would have been a fine comedy if MacFarlane had decided to go down the Adam McKay line (or even the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker line, who he references directly in the film - yes, Seth MacFarlane makes a direct pop culture reference in something!), but instead we get a hackneyed, limp, and poorly structured "serious" story in an attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The humour is of MacFarlane's usual juvenile line, but I can't deny that there are some very good gags in there. And I do like the more idiosyncratic elements such as Ribisi's character (better developed than his Gangster Squad counterpart, anyway), and the whole Flash Gordon thing. It's not a terrible film, but it is largely inept.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012, Sanders)

Could have been a pretty good action-adventure flick, and it's not far off it to be honest, but a few critical mis-steps let it down. Some of the dialogue is horrendous, Theron isn't very good (far more nasty in Young Adult, not to mention... well... Monster. Not that I'm asking for that again), and some of the plot movement is bad, principally how Snow White goes straight from being poisoned to being Boudica - totally bereft of motivation. Still, it's a purdy production, with some stunning design elements and some excellent shallow-focus photography from Greig Fraser (who I think/hope is the next big thing in cinematography). Also I'm amazed at the cast for the dwarves: Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Nick Frost... and some other guy.

 

The Three Stooges. It perfectly captured the madcap mayhem of their original films updated for today, but with some unneeded gross-out gags. You just gotta love Moe beating up on the Jersey Shore cast.

 

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

 

Pineapple Express

 

0 dark 30. i very, very much enjoyed it but i wish i hadn't been drunk during the first half.

 

Catfish. A very interesting movie indeed.

 

The Queen of Versailles. It's pretty difficult to feel at all sorry for those people (yeah, I know we're not necessarily supposed to). In addition to being filthy rich and living very opulently, both Siegel and his wife have very poor money management skills. He mortgaged his houses to fund his business even though he didn't really need to, just wanted to stretch his assets to their limit even in boom times? wtf? He didn't put money away for his kids' college tuition or have any sort of rainy day fund? He isn't taking the way out the banks offered him (JUST GET RID OF "VERSAILLES" AND THAT STUPID VEGAS TOWER YOU MORON)? He vaguely acknowledges fault at one point, but mostly tries to put the blame on the banks-- which is fair enough I suppose.

I felt sorry for their nanny. She talked about her kids in the Philippines she hadn't seen for almost 20 years, she lives in the daughters' old playhouse (though to be fair it was apparently at her request); and there was a line about how her father wanted to live in a concrete house (?) and died before achieving that dream, but he's in a concrete tomb now so that's something. Jesus Christ.

 

That was a great documentary. I think the director did a good job not playing the, "Let's watch these bastards get their comeuppance" to the hilt. It evoked equal parts rancor and sympathy with me. Well maybe more of a 2-1 ratio but still.
Definitely a film that hits the old, "Speaks to our time" cliche too.

 

Silver Linings Playbook. Not usually a rom-com fan and considering this definitely has more rom than com, by all accounts I should hate it. However, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Unlike a lot of other films in the genre, SLP has more meat to its bones in terms of subject matter and also has great performances from the cast. Jennifer Lawrence is rapidly becoming one of the best actresses around and the fact she's able to do big blockbuster films as well as smaller, deeper films is a vast credit to her. Bradley Cooper is great as well, possessing a demented energy that plays well alongside Robert De Niro as his arguably more unhinged, yet undiagnosed father. A very entertaining film, ideal for a Saturday night.

Beasts of the Southern Wild. A very odd film. Wikipedia tells me it's a fantasy movie but unlike one I've ever seen. I understand that most of it is set in the real world in terms of the people, the situation and what they go through. What throws me is the aurochs. Are they real or a figment of Hushpuppy's imagination? Regardless, I thought it was a very enjoyable film and Quvenzhané Wallis' charisma, astounding for one so young, drags you through the film and makes you care about these backwards but seemingly happy and content peoples lives.

Les Misérables. Painfully mediocre. The first half of the film was complete and utter rubbish. Painfully dull and tedious. Basically, it can be summed up as: "Ooh, wasn't 19th Century France a bit grim?" Luckily the second half of the film improved greatly and actually brought in a plot.
I thought the acting was good, particularly Jackman's, though I don't get why Hathaway is getting so much praise and award recognition for what amounted to a bit part. I thought Samantha Bark was far superior as Éponine, both in terms of singing and in terms of me giving a damn about her character. In contrast, Fantine's death had no emotional resonance with me. We'd only just met her and not met her daughter yet, so her tale of woe was little more than a plot device to get Cosette to Valjean.

Spoiler

Speaking of whom, his death for no apparent reason at the end threw me a bit. Perhaps wading through a river a crap had an adverse effect on his health, because up to that point he seemed fit as a fiddle.

I did quite like Russell Crowe's character, even if he can't sing for toffee and liked referring to himself in the third person far too much. I also liked Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen's characters as well. Perhaps my highlight of the film. Of the Best Picture Oscar nominees I've seen so far (Lincoln, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained and Silver Linings Playbook) it's by far my least favourite.

 

Seven Psychopaths - It was a pretty cool movie, I totally love this style of dark humor in film. It got sloppy in some places but I enjoyed it and would recommend it to others. Plus it's got Christoper Walken in it so come on.

 

Gangster Squad: An incredibly stupid and silly rip-off of The Untouchables that is also really funny to watch if you're on strong pain medication. Sean Penn is basically a demented cartoon character ("here comes Santy Clause!") and Nick Nolte must have wandered on set in a stolen police uniform or something. Ryan Gosling was doing some strange Marlon Brando impersonation the whole time, and everyone seemed to be hating on poor Michael Pena.

Zero Dark Thirty: I liked it well enough, but it felt distant and chilly from all of the characters save for Jessica Chastain who was very good. The last 30 minutes or so is especially intense, and it's great that Mark Strong is still getting work. Probably not my pick for Best Picture. I'd either go with Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, or Lincoln at this point.

 

...but he never wears a uniform in the whole film...?

 

Some sort of uniform. I don't remember. I had no idea what he was saying, so I assumed he was trying to tell Josh Brolin that he's Batman or something.

 

Silver Linings Playbook. I guess this can be counted as a dark romantic comedy?