Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It

[Puck]

Sounds good I can wait until January and that makes sense to wait until then for movies. I'm just impatient with all the 'Best of' at this time of year I guess.

BTW, I decided not to watch The Killing of a Sacred Deer. I read the reviews and it doesn't look like something I'm into, Just saying that after your refusal to watch The Room lol. We are all different. I know I can't vote if I don't watch it, just not into watching everything. I'm not watching Mother! either but I might give Dark Tower a peek (even if it's just to dump on it, it might get the fast forward treatment if it gets too bad).

p.s. although if something does win an Academy Award, I might watch it just to opinionate (if that's a word).

 

[kihei]

^^^^^^^
For what it is worth, I cobbled together an "at the moment," non-definitive, work-in-progress top twenty:

Top Twenty of '17 so far

Loveless, Zyvgintsev, Russia
The Death of Louis XIV, Serra, Spain/France

The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Lanthimos, Ireland/US
Blade Runner 2049, Villeneuve, US
On Body and Soul, Enyedi, Hungary
The Third Murder, Kore-eda, Japan
Faces Places, Varda, France
Get Out, Peel, US
A Fantastic Woman, Leilo, Chile
Valley of Shadows, Gulbrandsen, Norway

Lady Bird, Gerwig, US
The Fortress, Hwang, South Korea
After the Storm, Kore-eda, Japan
Dunkirk, Nolan, UK
Zama, Martel, Argentina
Graduation, Mungiu, Romania
The Seen and the Unseen, Andini, Indonesia
The Florida Project, Baker, US
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Baumbach, US
Thelma, Trier, Norway

The first pair would be "9"s (among best of the decade); the second 3-10 group "8"s (among best of the year); and the bottom group of ten"7"s (very good movies) of one variety or another.
.

 

[Puck]

Thanks for the advance peek.

I haven't seen many of them yet because you get to see them in festivals whereas I have to wait until they come out at the art house theatres or I can cheat them on Kodi or the bit-torrents. For instance you probably saw Paterson at a festival in 2016 but I had to wait until 2017 until it was released in theatres (not even a sniff of that in other media by the way).

I'm like Led Zappa and have to pick my spots, don't have the time to watch it all. Nice to get suggestions. I appreciate your work. I still have reservations personally about Get Out and Meyerowitz but that is the fun about this, we are all different. I admit they are good, it just wasn't for me. I won't get over A Ghost Story though, hell that was crap (for me). You are admittedly a cinephile though and love it (all movies) more than I do, I can't fault you for that (with that I know you will like a lot of titles I won't). Still appreciate the suggestions/views (and from others too).

 

[ProstheticConscience]

To Live and Die in LA

with William Peterson and Willem Dafoe.

It's the 80's. William Peterson (CSI's Gil Grissom) is a...cop? Treasury agent? in LA in the 80's. He's tracking nefarious counterfeiter Willem Dafoe (with disconcertingly smooth cheeks) after he did something nasty to someone in LA. In the 80's. While wearing tight 80's pants. Listening to tight 80's music. And then they fight, making fake 80's non-punches that knock each other silly.

In the 80's. And it's just awesome. Gag me with a spoon, man.

Amazing to see that once upon a time both William Peterson and Willem Dafoe were once fresh-faced youngsters looking to score big roles in Hollywood movies. Elias in particular looks like the most obnoxious douche you went to high school with, and in one great sequence, Young Grissom is back-to-back with a potential assassin against an apartment wall...building suspense for a few seconds quite well...but then a few fake punches later he wins the fight. His nervous partner calls from a bar the next scene...and Grissom's naked in bed with his girlfriend. Uh...where'd your captive go? Is your girlfriend going to be in the mood for sex literally seconds after someone came into her apartment trying to kill her and is presumably still restrained in her living room? Seriously?

The most 80's movie ever made. Even more so than Beverly Hills Cop. It totally is. Ignore my wife, she's just wrong about this.

 

[Desdichado93]

Have seen a bunch of movies yesterday and today.

Saw Hunger games when it was still in the cinemas and hadn't seen the rest of the series until this weekend.
Hunger games: catching fire + Mockingjay part 1 & 2.
Jennifer Lawrence does an adequate job but the films are nothing special and too drawn out.

Cider with Rosie
a nice little English drama set in the time of the first 20th century. Not much of story and I don't
like how it jumps back and forward between different stages of the main characters life.

Inherent Vice.
Like the other movies above. Nothing special and nothing will keep you on a hook. Pretty forgettable movie.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Am I the only one who doesn't care for Baumbach? I haven't delved deeply into his stuff but While We're Young is genuiely one of the worst movies I've watched in the past couple of years.

 

[OzzyFan]

The Disaster Artist
???? out of 4stars

I really don't know how to grade this or even truly take this in. It's a movie about a number of things...friendship, dreams, happiness, and even life a bit. That said, I liked the movie but didn't think it was great, just good and very awkward. As a character study, first and foremost James Franco is great and sells the part perfectly and is the main reason imo you should see this movie, I don't find Wiseau that deep or interesting or thoughtfully unpredicable or entertaining in himself. (SPOILERS BELOW GIVEN SOME DESCRIPTIVE THINGS I WILL SAY) :

Spoiler

Wiseau is an introvert dreamer whose biggest intrigue is his mystery/"why is he the way he is", none which ever is disclosed. Is he mentally ill? Arguably. Did his hinted at fortune come from some accident or mob or inheritance? Maybe. Is he (Eastern) European? More than likely, barring some New Orleans or what have you "little italy-esque" neighborhood in some city in the US or elsewhere to give him his accent. Is the room about Wiseau's sad life, done in an awful over the top, so bad that it's ironically funny way? Quite possibly.

To me, Wiseau isn't interesting enough to deserve this "character study". He's also very awkward, but not in a genius or biography worthy way. Greg written here isn't deep enough to warrant consideration as a quality supporting character, he's a wide eyed young dreamer with on and off hope, where's the depth? Anyone? None of the characters outside the main 2 are even given any script to become something more than a note in this song. Irony is the only reason, and James Franco's performance, that I can understand why people think this would be a great movie. It's got funny parts, but it's from a great comedy. It's got dramatic parts, but it's far from a "what's gonna happen next" great drama. It's satire-ish, but I don't see any deep discussion points or wisdom it's dropping on us. Sure, Wiseau is famous for reasons no one can truly explain, but that's not the point. Wiseau isn't a genius and may not even be of average intelligence, he's just plain lucky to have the will and circumstances (money is a huge part of it, blessed with it in some way or another) he does to accomplish what he did. As a feel good cross genre movie, I guess I give it 2.25 out of 4stars .

 

[kihei]

I liked Gerwig and the French New Wave references in Francis Ha and I liked this year's The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) a lot, but other than that he leaves me pretty cold.

 

[Puck]

Am I the only one who doesn't care for Baumbach? I haven't delved deeply into his stuff but While We're Young is genuiely one of the worst movies I've watched in the past couple of years.

I disliked Meyorowitz his very last project but many here and the Cannes film festival disagree with me. I liked Francis Ha, a collaboration with Greta Gerwig.

He is a very literary Director, and he writes a lot of his own stuff. I understand he asks actors to stick to the script, he's rigid about that, I guess he likes the lines he created. I don't like or dislike him, but Meyerowitz tired me out. I admit it is a quality project, I just did not take to it. Whenever there was a chance for humour there also seemed to be in an uncomfortable setting, to me it was like a chalk on the blackboard. But Adam Sadler is getting much praise for his work in the film (and others).

I noticed a theme he has about neurotic failed/frustrated artists in dysfunctional family settings. They say writing (and perhaps Directing) is therapeutic, he might be working out some of his own issues on screen. I just don't feel I have to be on the other side of the big-screen psychiatrist couch, listening in as a voyeur, while he works out his issues on screen. So I will be very careful before seeing his next project (make sure I read up on it to decide first).

 

[Nalens Oga]

Psych: The Movie is out...I saw the first 15 minutes and was grinning from ear to ear, it's so funny. It's streaming for free on the USA Network site (blocked outside the US though so I downloaded it off reddit).

Am I the only one who doesn't care for Baumbach? I haven't delved deeply into his stuff but While We're Young is genuiely one of the worst movies I've watched in the past couple of years.

That was shit but Frances Ha is one of the best films of the decade for me and The Meyerowitz stories was a solid 7 .5 or 8/10. They have to resonate though I guess, at least the former.

 

[kihei]

Just a head's up to any Guillermo del Toro fans in and around Toronto. The "Bleak House" exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario is wonderful. It contains an endless collection of artifacts, gadgets, books, comic books. paintings, toys. working models, videos, and on and on. The exhibit goes a long way to explaining del Toro's attitudes toward monsters of all kinds and lends any number of insights into his movies. Any fan of the horror genre will likely find the exhibit worthwhile as well. I believe tickets are half price on Wednesday. I think the exhibit will be around for about another month.

 

[OzzyFan]

Shaun the Sheep
2.75 out of 4stars

Very clever, fun, amiable, and cute children's comedy with zero dialogue.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

2/5

 

[BonMorrison]

Just a head's up to any Guillermo del Toro fans in and around Toronto. The "Bleak House" exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario is wonderful. It contains an endless collection of artifacts, gadgets, books, comic books. paintings, toys. working models, videos, and on and on. The exhibit goes a long way to explaining del Toro's attitudes toward monsters of all kinds and lends any number of insights into his movies. Any fan of the horror genre will likely find the exhibit worthwhile as well. I believe tickets are half price on Wednesday. I think the exhibit will be around for about another month.

Absolutely loved it. So much larger and more detailed than the usual AGO exhibits.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Here is a very slightly edited version of my original review:
After the Storm (2017) Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda 7A

In After the Storm, director Hirokazu Kore-eda focuses on Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), one of the director's less attractive characters. Though he is a successful author of one novel, Ryota's life has gone nowhere and he hasn't capitalized on his good fortune. He becomes a detective, partly as research for his next novel and partly as a scam as he is always short of cash, thanks to an addiction to lottery tickets and gambling. He cannot even provide child support payments on time to his estranged spouse who has moved on with her life. He takes turns with his sister taking advantage of his good-natured mom who doesn't seem to mind greatly. But his young son does seem deeply important to him, and he knows that he messed up badly with his wife. Ryota plots to get his estranged family back together for an evening, hoping that something good might come of it. And in a way, it does. Waiting for the movie to start, I was wondering when Kore-eda would reach his limit with these tales of family turmoil that he has specialized in his whole career and that he does so exceedingly well. Would there come a saturation point where the material just became too familiar and repetitive? Maybe someday, but he hasn't got there yet. Rather, he has become the modern-day Yasujiro Ozu--a director who makes movies about the seemingly mundane that are nonetheless filled with compassion and insight (and like Ozu, Kore-eda has now stopped moving his camera almost entirely, preferring, like the master himself, a static camera position). The movie did get off to a problematic start for me as I did not know how much time I wanted to spend with Ryota. But once the typhoon arrives and the broken family takes shelter in Granny's cramped apartment, After the Storm thoroughly won me over. Some people's lives can seem to run away from them. It may not be the end of the world, but Kore-eda is expert at showing that for some it can certainly feel that way.

If you get a chance, track down The Third Murder. It is one hell of a change of pace.

Cool, thanks! This is the first Kore-eda film I've seen, so I can't speak to the potential saturation of his content or the change of pace his latest provides, but I certainly enjoyed After The Storm a lot. A very human film, and, despite some of the proceedings, never felt too heavy, which was nice (not that I don't enjoy a huge downer every now and then). The light, wistful score definitely played a big part in that, IMO. Like you, my engagement levels varied when we were just following Ryota around his job. While these scenes were not without purpose in terms of informing Ryota's character, I had very little interest in the content they revolved around. But yeah, it all builds to some thoroughly satisfying and captivating discussions in that apartment.

I may be generalizing things a bit, but, the more Japanese/Korean films I see, the more I notice and enjoy that they actually feel like, well, foreign movies to me. Obviously, a movie from France or Germany is still foreign, but most any European movie still has a general Western feel to the proceedings and how everything is presented. This is not the case with most Eastern films I've seen, and I do genuinely delight in that it really feels like I'm seeing a story from a different world (since, you know, I actually am). Many of the cultural differences just have a refreshing sense about them, for whatever reason.

I really enjoyed After the Storm. The Grandmother (or Ryota's Mother) was a great character.

Yeah, she really was. The ensemble was pretty solid across the board, but she was definitely a standout.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Only Yesterday (dir. Isao Takahata). B+
There's a lot of things to like about this one, with an absolutely lovely ending being one of them. Almost every scene involving young Taeko is just pitch-perfect in terms of feeling and mood. It's an impeccable job of specifically capturing the wildly specific moods and situations one experiences when a child, and those parts of the movie will always be timeless. Equally wonderful was when those scenes would overtly inform a present-day conversation (recounting her role in the school play, inspired by seeing the bird fly away, was great).

I could've done with a lot less talk about organic farming and the current state of the Japanese farming industry. To me, those parts really dragged, and I didn't find much at all interesting about them. For a movie which already moves at a methodically calculated pace, it can't really afford any dips in engagement from its audience. If you're talking about the rewatchibility of a film factoring into its overall quality (and I certainly do), then that's were Only Yesterday loses most of its points, as I wouldn't look forward to sitting through a lot of those parts again.

 

[Arizonan God]

On the topic of Baumbach; I'm a huge fan, but I'll agree with the setiment regarding While We're Young. What a mess.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

While everyone else is trying to catch the year's best in cinema and television, I decided to watch a pretty bad horror flick instead.

Temple (2017)
Dir. Michael Barrett

Where do I begin? I feel like writing about a film as insignificant as this one is an exercise in futility, a waste of time for both myself and the reader. Suppose I should start with the plot, which involves three Americans traveling to Japan to research various temples. In the process, they.........I dunno, some supernatural shit happens. One of the three "protagonists," Chris, has some minor backstory involving a dead brother or something, there's that. The girl traveling with him, Kate, carries her douchebag boyfriend James around. Chris likes Kate, that's pretty obvious. Ummmmm......oh, and Chris also happens to be pretty fluent in Japanese, though his education in Japanese language and culture never taught him that written Japanese is read from right to left. That was weird.

The movie is painfully (yet mercifully) short at 78 mins, and it sure feels like a good thirty minutes of material was cut in the process, context and character development to be more precise. I really cannot say much else about this one; outside of the intriguing premise, the only other noteworthy element of Temple is the ending. Let it be known that few endings have been botched more terrifically in the history of cinema. I "think" the film was going for that open-ended cheese, and the cheese that came out was moldy cottage. Even the acting President of the United States' ramblings are more coherent and purposeful than this abomination of a resolution.

This was hard to write. This just sucked, stay away.

Rating: A Void of Nothing/10

 

[Nalens Oga]

This Lucas Hedges kid has built up quite a nice little filmography, small but almost everything he's acted in has been good despite him not seeming like a very standout actor. Moonrise Kingdom, Manchester By The Sea, Lady Bird, and Three Billboards:

Lucas Hedges at Criticker

 

[aleshemsky83]

The Disaster Artist

Holy moly Tommy Wiseau was not kidding. Not sure why Franco made fun of him for saying the lighting was poor. I couldn't see anything in this movie. James Franco needs to stay away from directing because the lighting was actually awful and the film grain and shaky cam was very noticeable and detracted from it a lot.

As for the actual movie, I watched the Room and listened to the Disaster artist audiobook before seeing this, and it just isn't very good in comparison to the audiobook.

James Franco's brother (I can't be bothered to look up his name) was just awful, he had this confused look on his face the whole movie and was especially bad during some of the forced bits that were not in the book/audiobook, namely their fight and the movie theater scene.

Honestly, the audiobook is what you want, I probably would recommend it over the book just because of how uncanny Greg sisteros impersonation is. James Franco's is awful in comparison.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

^^^^^^^
For what it is worth, I cobbled together an "at the moment," non-definitive, work-in-progress top twenty:

Top Twenty of '17 so far

Loveless, Zyvgintsev, Russia
The Death of Louis XIV, Serra, Spain/France

The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Lanthimos, Ireland/US
Blade Runner 2049, Villeneuve, US
On Body and Soul, Enyedi, Hungary
The Third Murder, Kore-eda, Japan
Faces Places, Varda, France
Get Out, Peel, US
A Fantastic Woman, Leilo, Chile
Valley of Shadows, Gulbrandsen, Norway

Lady Bird, Gerwig, US
The Fortress, Hwang, South Korea
After the Storm, Kore-eda, Japan
Dunkirk, Nolan, UK
Zama, Martel, Argentina
Graduation, Mungiu, Romania
The Seen and the Unseen, Andini, Indonesia
The Florida Project, Baker, US
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Baumbach, US
Thelma, Trier, Norway

The first pair would be "9"s (among best of the decade); the second 3-10 group "8"s (among best of the year); and the bottom group of ten"7"s (very good movies) of one variety or another.
.

Surprised to see you liked Get Out...

Of course it got tons of great reviews, so I guess you wouldn't be the only one to like it.

I just couldn't get around some obvious conveniences and suspensions of common sense I suppose.

 

[Linda Bacon]

The Room (2003)

Strangely entertaining and captivating. Lisa is one cold evil b*tch.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Gave Get Out a re-watch as well, and my opinion hasn't really changed. I get it, I love the concept, I think the movie itself is fine.

 

[Voight]

Justice League 6.5/10.... it was good but the issue is once you see a superhero collab movie like the Avengers, your expectations are way too high. I was against Affleck being Batman from the start of the DCEU but he was much better in this one in comparison B v S.

They chose the perfect character for the Flash.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

5/10