Amph What was the last movie you saw?

just saw requiem for a dream for the first time. (i'm always a little late to everything). it was.. intense.

 

I really love the first half of this movie!

saw Frances ha and it was lovely

 

Yeah, Requiem is pretty intense. And that finale is nothing but devastating. If you're looking for instantaneous depression, that'll do the trick.

 

What? I understand not liking it, I guess, but how on earth would it work on stage? For that matter, how would it function in any other medium? Say what you will, but every element of this film oozes pure cinema, even if its ideas become a bit limited and consolidated by film's end.

 

Considering how minimalist the film is, yes, I think it would work well on an experimental theater's stage. There are several elements like her driving around all over Scotland, what happens to her prey inside the "lair" and her ultimate fate that, while challenging, can certainly be overcome by practical stage effects and, well, acting. I don't think it's impossible.

I understood the ideas well enough and I think the director was doing his damnedest to channel Kubrick, but it just didn't click with me.

 

X-Men Days of Future Past

It was great. The best film in the franchise.

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993) - So bad even Next Mutation be like "I don't know them.". - 3/10

 

Wasn't Under the Skin directed by the guy who did Sexy Beast? I rather liked that film.

 

Expendables 3. Overall, it was all right, in a trying-to-be-the-next-Commando action movie kind of way. Kelsey Grammer was funny playing himself. "Is that the Big Dipper? Yeah, we need to turn around." But it was Antonio Banderas who stole every scene he was in. It looked like he was having so much fun, he should have paid the producers to be in the movie. If you're on the fence, go see it for Antonio.

 

Yes. Can't say I've seen Sexy Beast, though.

 

Expendables 3: peace of &@$/. Second one got it right. It was a classic style 80's action flick, that had lots of campy humor, and lots of bullets flying with lots of 80's action heros in attendance. 3 made the same mistakes as the first with boring new characters, way to serious of a tone, and very littles humor. Add to it that it had the worst plot and was the least focused.

 

Hook Terrible movie. Full of the worst of Spielbergian tropes so much that it's practically paint-by-numbers. The Neverland sets looked cheap and straight out of a theme park stage show. Spielberg uses the "this was before cg" excuse, but Jesus Christ. The kid actors were all annoying. And the plot is boring, boring, boring, which is amazing for something that supposedly tries to do something new and creative with the Peter Pan story. Yeah, I watched because of Williams' death, it is on Netflix, and I hadn't seen it in a long time. I wish I hadn't. He was in much better films.

Also, has Maggie Smith always been 75+?

 

Interesting coincidence. Me too!

Frances Ha (2013)



Greta Gerwig stars as a knock-about New Yorker. That’s kind of the plot. She’s twenty-seven and, in the words of one of the character, has an old face, but doesn’t have her **** together. Gerwig’s performance is really wonderful. She’s a flighty, rootless, wandering loser and she’s excellent at finding hilarious moments of awkwardness and charm and melancholy moments of self-reflection. The rest of the cast is really great as well. The film is shot in luminous black and white and features a fantastic score of found music, everything from scores from the French New Wave films that obviously influenced this one to eighties pop songs. It’s a film that’s consistently laugh-out-loud funny. If you like your films with strong plots, this’ll give you hives; it’s a film that just rambles about, split into chapters based on who Frances is crashing with. At just over an hour-twenty, it still felt kind of long the first time I watched it. But if that’s a flaw, it can’t really be separated from the main strength, the loose-limbed charm of both the film and its “heroine.” I absolutely loved it. It’s hilarious, charming and witty. It’s my first Baumbach film, but it won’t be my last. The scene of Frances running down a New York street as David Bowie’s Let’s Dance blares on the soundtrack is the most unfettered moment of cinematic joy I’ve experienced this year. Do yourself a favor and get to know Frances. Oh, by the way, one of the major pitfalls of this kind of movie is the ending; movies that just sort of ramble about usually don’t have any idea how to end, but that is assuredly not true of this film. The final shot of this movie is absolutely perfect. Great movie. Highly recommended. 4 stars.

tl;dr – Greta Gerwig’s hilarious performance and the beautiful black and white cinematography shine in this plotless film about young people in New York. Charming, rambling and funny. 4 stars.

 

Rogue1-and-a-half you should watch the squid and the whale by Baumbach, it's the first movie of his i saw and it's really good too.

 

Yeah, I definitely want to check out some of his other stuff. I'll check that one out for sure.

 

Watched Saving Mr. Banks a bit earlier on Sky Movies. I liked the trailer when I saw it in the cinema but didn't want to pay cinema prices for it when it came out. Not a bad film - I liked it.

 

Minimal plot, minimal character development (frankly minimum thematic elements), but maximum use of composition, score, and mood. Certainly fair to say it didn't click. It'd be an interesting show, I guess, but better? I dunno. You couldn't put that beach scene on the stage.

 

The Shawshank Redemption... so, in the Shelf of Shame game, I was given much grief - setup by myself, but still- over the fact that I have in my possession a DVD of this film for over a year, but hadn't watched it yet. Well, that changed today... needless-to-say, all the hype, all the calls of "Hey, schmuck, you'll love this film!" rang true: this is one hell of a well acted, shot & written motion picture. It was a wise decision to have Morgan Freeman's 'Red' narrate this picture... I'm a sucker for that sort-of-thing (great examples:Casino, Gangs of New York, The Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room). But still, 'Red' is an engrossing character, as is Tim Robbins 'Andy Dufresne', and the scores of their fellow inmates who round out the cast (my personal favorite from that bunch being Brooks); also, as a fat/husky person, of course 'Fat Ass' meets a terrible end when we're first introduced to Shawshank prison .


So, yeah, it's a prison movie, so certain tropes & cliches (corrupt warden! deals made with guards for contraband!) are found, but unlike many terrible films or over-the-top-films about that sort-of-thing, this film rises above them through the strength of the script & acting. Also, though Bob Gunton's warden 'Norton' ends up (ie: a sadistic schmuckhole) as so many wardens do in thus type of picture, his characterization is complex, and despite his brutality, he carries it out in a Michael Corelone-esque fashion, as opposed to a more bullish Sonny Corelone-type. Also, much like Forrest Gump and other Darabont films (The Green Mile, The Majestic as prime "offenders") , this is very much a by-the-numbers picture (in a Law & Order fashion): are we really surprised or shocked where the events lead-up to? No, no we aren't... and this isn't a severe, well any-sort-of criticism about Shawshank, either (in those aforementioned examples, I very much enjoy & love all those films/the L&O-franchise): just a statement of fact, from my point-of-view.



Now, only Four Weddings and a Funeral remain as the lone film from the vaunted 1994 Best Picture class of nominees (it's seriously one of the best group of Best Picture nominees ever) that I haven't seen, but I doubt that when and/or if I see it -even if I end up enjoying it-, that it'll change my mind as to which film should have won the '94 Best Picture Oscar: Pulp Fiction.



**** out of ****.

 

Bad form!

 

Guardians of the Galaxy. Loved it.

 

Darth Tunes, now find go and find Ghostbusters somewhere, see it and love it.

 

Wild Strawberries (1957)

An Ingmar Bergman film about people who hate their live-

Oh wait, that's every single Ingmar Bergman film.

 

This movie is shown pretty much incessantly on cable, I'm surprised anyone hasn't seen it.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy. That was fun. Think Star Wars with superheroes. Marvel has just earned a ton of blind trust.

 

Noah-The performances were good and it was beautifully shot. But story wise the film is a mess and frankly kind of boring. C-

The Raid and the Raid 2-I know this isn't the popular consensus about this films but while I acknowledge the skill of the films. They are rather tedious. C- for the Raid. C+ for the Raid 2

Locke-I LOVED it.

It's such a simple film and largely due to Tom Hardy it is mesmerizing the whole time. I'm telling you conversations about concrete will never be this exciting. Watch this movie. A