Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It

[Jevo]

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Natey]

Big Fish (2003)
Watched this movie a few hours ago and absolutely loved it. The message was strong, the acting was perfect, and it hit all the right notes. The cast is very good as it features Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Marion Cotillard, Steve Buscemi, and Jessica Lange. Watching this movie for 30 minutes, I was so confused where it was going. I had a general idea of the overall plan, but they did a good job at just stretching it even further. As I continued the movie, it got more interesting and even more crazy. The final 10 minutes will absolutely bring tears unless you have no soul because the first 110 minutes of the film serve as some of the best build-up you could ask for in the film and for once, an ending doesn't mess up the build. I loved this movie with all my heart. Oh, and the score was absolutely perfect.
5-Star Rating Scale: *****

 

[Natey]

Wind River (2017)
Nearly a perfect film with a few flaws in "sense." A couple things didn't make a lot of sense, as far as the writing goes, but they're pretty minor overall. Another film with a strong message and fantastic acting. Jeremy Renner was absolutely incredible in this role. I'm honestly shocked he wasn't in Oscar contention for something like this. Elizabeth Olsen was very good, although some of the writing did her no extra favours. The mystery wasn't all that crazy or hard to solve, but the movie isn't so much about the mystery as it is about the message. The final sequence is very powerful. It's both heartwarming and gut wrenching at the same time. Highly recommended.
5-Star Rating Scale: ****1/2

 

[kihei]

I noticed the Spanish film Truman (directed by Cesc Gay, 2016?) was finally out on DVD, so I rented it for the family. The movie is about a Spanish expat living with his family in Montreal who travels to Madrid to visit a dying friend with whom he had begun to lose touch. That pretty much sums it up. However, it is even a lovelier film than I remember it when I first saw it. Truman is about mortality, male friendship and grace under pressure; in a way, to be a bit cryptic about it, Truman is also about the differences among what you can say, what you wish you could say, and that which can never be expressed. There is not a single false moment in the entire movie, not a speck of contrived sentimentality. Also, the film contains two excellent performances by Ricardo Darin (The Secret in Their Eyes) and Javier Camara (Talk to Her). I'd give Truman an 8A now. Highly recommended.

subtitled

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

Good Bye, Lenin!: 8/10 Very good movie

Delicatessen: 8/10 Very good movie.

kong Skull Island: 7.4/10

A monster calls: 7.3/10

King Kong (2005): 6.8/10 Stupid and fun movie but mostly stupid. Great cinematography and special effets and Naomi Watts is beautiful. The movie is way too long and the story made no sense.

Trip a 3: 6.8/10

 

[Arizonan God]

Blade Runner 2049. It gets better the more I think about it. I think a 9 is in order. I liked it significantly more than the original.

It's a shame we won't get a big budget film like this in a long, long time.

 

[nameless1]

Oga has his own opinions, but he seems to have completely missed the point of the film. One of the best film on food ever made, Babette's Feast manages to completely capture the cathartic nature of food in a way that even a non-connoisseur can understand.

 

[kihei]

The Stopover (2016) Directed by Delphine and Muriel Coulin 7B

The Stopover focuses primarily on two women soldiers who, with the rest of their almost exclusively male battalion, are partaking of a three day "decompression" vacation in Cypress before returning to France. They all have just served a traumatic tour of duty in Afghanistan. By the time they get to Cypress, the entire battalion, male and female, is wound so tight they are bound to lash out at something and almost anything will do. Balls of negative, frustrated, angry energy, for the soldiers, a three-day vacation at a luxury resort is going to do absolutely nothing to make them fit to return to France. This understated, beautifully observed film packs a real punch on a couple of levels. It depicts both the kind of discrimination and sexual aggression that women in the military too often have to contend with, and it, also, shows better than most anti-war movies the corrosive nature of war and the soul-destroying effect it can have on the psyches of the young people who bear the burden of combat. While the toxic tension generated in the movie is not always comfortable, The Stopover is not one of those movies that I will quickly forget.

subtitles

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Wind River (2017)
Nearly a perfect film with a few flaws in "sense." A couple things didn't make a lot of sense, as far as the writing goes, but they're pretty minor overall. Another film with a strong message and fantastic acting. Jeremy Renner was absolutely incredible in this role. I'm honestly shocked he wasn't in Oscar contention for something like this. Elizabeth Olsen was very good, although some of the writing did her no extra favours. The mystery wasn't all that crazy or hard to solve, but the movie isn't so much about the mystery as it is about the message. The final sequence is very powerful. It's both heartwarming and gut wrenching at the same time. Highly recommended.
5-Star Rating Scale: ****1/2

What did you feel didn’t make sense?

 

[BrendanGallagher11]

Slumdog millionaire

9.2 on 10


First time watching it
Really enjoyed it

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

TaeGukGi The Brotherhood of War : 8/10 Good war movie.

Mother (2009) : 7.4/10 Decent korean thriller.

Passengers: 7.2/10 Had the potential to be better but it's nowhere as bad as the critics said.

Dogville: 7/10

Not total garbage but also far from genius. Great set design and cinematography and good performance by Kidman but the story is just not good enough.

The Crow (1994): 6/10

 

[Natey]

What did you feel didn’t make sense?

Just a few little things, mostly involving Olsen's character. Things that FBI agents wouldn't do.

And the biggest one is the backup. Even if they couldn't send backup because of Natalie's death not being ruled a homicide, after that Olsen herself kills somebody AND they find another recently deceased body. 3 dead people found within days... okay.

Either way... A 9/10 is still incredible. Loved it. I've seen it twice now.

 

[John Price]

Iron Man (2008) is a pretty good movie. Watched it for the first time today

 

[ProstheticConscience]

The Shape of Water

Mute woman falls in love with Aquaman, fights to evade evil Michael Shannon, picture wins Oscar.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

 

[kihei]

The Shape of Water

Mute woman falls in love with Aquaman, fights to evade evil Michael Shannon, picture wins Oscar.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

Something fishy about the win, you think?

 

[kihei]

Saw Annhilation again with one of my daughters and was blown away, more so than the first time I saw it actually. I think the first time I saw it there was just too much to absorb. I still believe my "new Adam and Eve" theory holds up well. But this time I was better able to see how the parts fit together and to be impressed by the amazing set design and use of music in the film. It's much better directed than I gave it credit for--the mood Garland creates is almost indescribable but very effective. When I reviewed it the first time a couple of hours after I saw it, I gave it a "6" which quickly got transformed the next day into a "7." I'd rate it now an "8B." I find it hard to believe that I will see twenty movies better than Annihilation this year. I don't think that since Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin have I seen a movie that more rewarded a second look.


Best of '18 so far

1. Foxtrot, Maoz, Israel
2. Annihilation, Garland, UK/US

 

[OzzyFan]

Saw Annhilation again with one of my daughters and was blown away, more so than the first time I saw it actually. I think the first time I saw it there was just too much to absorb. I still believe my "new Adam and Eve" theory holds up well. But this time I was better able to see how the parts fit together and to be impressed by the amazing set design and use of music in the film. It's much better directed than I gave it credit for--the mood Garland creates is almost indescribable but very effective. When I reviewed it the first time a couple of hours after I saw it, I gave it a "6" which quickly got transformed the next day into a "7." I'd rate it now an "8B." I find it hard to believe that I will see twenty movies better than Annihilation this year. I don't think that since Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin have I seen a movie that more rewarded a second look.


Best of '18 so far

1. Foxtrot, Maoz, Israel
2. Annihilation, Garland, UK/US

Yeah, there is so much going on in it, more than you'd think even. There are no plans yet on shooting the 2nd book of the Southern Reach Trilogy, Authority, yet right? I know Garland's interpretation isn't exact, but man he puts together a hell of a fun smart "human plight" story with layers. If you wouldn't mind Kihei, could you post with spoiler tags your interpretation or view of the last 15minutes of the movie? Metaphorically (and why not literally, to see if I "missed" anything).

 

[kihei]

Yeah, there is so much going on in it, more than you'd think even. There are no plans yet on shooting the 2nd book of the Southern Reach Trilogy, Authority, yet right? I know Garland's interpretation isn't exact, but man he puts together a hell of a fun smart "human plight" story with layers. If you wouldn't mind Kihei, could you post with spoiler tags your interpretation or view of the last 15minutes of the movie? Metaphorically (and why not literally, to see if I "missed" anything).

Okay, but this is put forward as a possible interpretation, in no sense a definitive interpretation, just my two cents.

Spoiler

I took the ending to be a logical summing up of what the movie was about. I thought the movie presented a new creation myth (creation out of annihilation) with a new Adam and Eve who represented, in effect, the future of life on this planet. I think the last scene underscores that interpretation very well. When Lena asks Kane "Are you Kane?", he replies "I don't think so." Then he asks "Are you Lena? and she can't quite bring herself to reply "I don't think so." But Kane senses it and they embrace, a strange new glow in both their eyes. To put it more melodramatically, the aliens have landed.

Metaphorically, I'd go out on a limb and say that at one level this is an ecological horror movie. We have f***ed up the planet and we have f***ed up ourselves--as the psychologist points out: we always do. So the meteor that creates the shimmer brings with it a change that will alter everything on the planet (increasingly scientists suggest the possibility that a meteor may have brought life to earth initially--so this is a nice reference to that theory). A new creation myth begins, with no need for a god to explain it. Nature is a force that is neither willful nor judgemental nor anything else that is sentient; however, again not consciously but just because of what it is, nature has a way of rooting out dangers to its system and we well may deserve extinction.

One other bit: I wonder if there is another biblical reference floating around in the name Kane, who slew Abel, his brother, in the bible (a reference directly connected to Adam and Eve myth, too). --Only in the movie Kane slays Kane.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Just a few little things, mostly involving Olsen's character. Things that FBI agents wouldn't do.

And the biggest one is the backup. Even if they couldn't send backup because of Natalie's death not being ruled a homicide, after that Olsen herself kills somebody AND they find another recently deceased body. 3 dead people found within days... okay.

Either way... A 9/10 is still incredible. Loved it. I've seen it twice now.

I don’t know exactly how FBI protocol works, so that probably slipped by me. I just assumed she was way out of her element there and just doing what she had to do to solve the case.

The backup thing I thought was explained that the FBI basically didn’t care about murders/disappearances of women on the reservation and weren’t risking man power... I thought that was the jist of why the movie was made... about how many women disappear or are murdered on the reservations without proper investigations.

The end quote was “While missing person statistics are compiled for every other demographic, none exist for Native American women.”

I read an article in the NYT that stated American Indian women are sexually assaulted or raped at four times the national average. They are also 10 times as likely to be murdered than other Americans.

 

[Arizonan God]

Saw Annhilation again with one of my daughters and was blown away, more so than the first time I saw it actually. I think the first time I saw it there was just too much to absorb. I still believe my "new Adam and Eve" theory holds up well. But this time I was better able to see how the parts fit together and to be impressed by the amazing set design and use of music in the film. It's much better directed than I gave it credit for--the mood Garland creates is almost indescribable but very effective. When I reviewed it the first time a couple of hours after I saw it, I gave it a "6" which quickly got transformed the next day into a "7." I'd rate it now an "8B." I find it hard to believe that I will see twenty movies better than Annihilation this year. I don't think that since Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin have I seen a movie that more rewarded a second look.


Best of '18 so far

1. Foxtrot, Maoz, Israel
2. Annihilation, Garland, UK/US

Just caught Annihilation tonight. Didn’t see any promo material or trailers, so I was absolutely blown away by what I saw. Demands a second watch for sure.

 

[Puck]

I watched Stopover written and directed by the Coulin sisters. Kihei wrote a good summary so I won't rehash it. Good movie but considering the subject matter, I found it difficult to watch. Very well written story about the psychological stress endured by soldiers in a war zone. I thought it was also an indictment of ongoing bad behaviour by men in western society, our values aren't as progressive as we think relative to various foreign countries we criticize about women's rights.

I also watched another French film this week, Knock by Lorraine Levy. It's not as deep as Stopover, but I found it very entertaining (moreso than Stopover actually even if it's more shallow), it deserves better than the 5.7 rating it gets on the Internet Movie DataBase. I would recommend it. The summary is available on the link below. I would add that the sub-plotline is religion vs science, a classic French philosophical battleground.

Knock (2017) - IMDb

 

[Natey]

I don’t know exactly how FBI protocol works, so that probably slipped by me. I just assumed she was way out of her element there and just doing what she had to do to solve the case.

The backup thing I thought was explained that the FBI basically didn’t care about murders/disappearances of women on the reservation and weren’t risking man power... I thought that was the jist of why the movie was made... about how many women disappear or are murdered on the reservations without proper investigations.

The end quote was “While missing person statistics are compiled for every other demographic, none exist for Native American women.”

I read an article in the NYT that stated American Indian women are sexually assaulted or raped at four times the national average. They are also 10 times as likely to be murdered than other Americans.

That's fine about them not caring about Natalie. That makes sense with the plot. Matt, however, was white. And that changes everything.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

That's fine about them not caring about Natalie. That makes sense with the plot. Matt, however, was white. And that changes everything.

I don't think either was able to be ruled a homicide though, which is why she couldn't get backup. Didn't she have an argument with the coroner over that?

It's been awhile since I saw the movie, so some of the dialogue escapes me at the moment.

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

Head-On: 8/10

The red violin: 7.8/10

28 days later: 7.5/10

About Elly: 7.5/10

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Loveless (2017) - Filled with perfectly-lighted gloomy shots which make your spine shiver and serve as the perfect backdrop for an even gloomier story in a gloomier world. Everything fits perfectly well within the tone of the film, including the two main character's new partners and their place of work who appear morbid in and of themselves, which help create a whole that feels natural even outside of the story-telling. Another great aspect to the story was the trick pulled throughout the first 45 minutes until the disappearance of the 12 year-old Alyosha. While there is no reason to feel any sympathy for the characters, I do think it is also difficult to feel mighter than they are throughout the watching of the film considering how well the filmmaker himself makes the viewer forget about Alyosha himself as you watch the two parents deal with their hostile divorce and newfound relationships and you almost become as engrossed as they are in their problems and dynamics. I think it gave a thorough jarring effect to the movie, a sort of inner-twist without a twist that can only be described as skillful. Perfectly acted film too. Should stand the test of time as well, considering it doesn't use any gimmick that could feel dated and appears relatively simple in it's aesthetic.