Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It

[kihei]

On Body and Soul (2017) Directed by Ildikó Enyedi 7A

Endre, so taciturn that he seems a little eccentric, is the financial manager in a slaughterhouse. He hires Maria who is autistic but able to function though she misses a lot of signals and is so uncertain much of the time that she seems like she is from another planet (she's not). When everyone in the company must undergo a psychological test, the psychologist, to her disbelief, discovers that Endre and Maria have exactly the same dreams, always involving a deer and a doe in wintry woodland setting. Gradually Endre and Maria try to resolve this perplexing dilemma on their own and in the process become closer to one another. On Body and Soul is gentle whimsy at its most mysterious. The imaginative premise is supported by first rate direction that resembles to some extent the work of Swedish director Ruben Ostland: there is a lot of attention to detail in virtually every frame and everything fits together beautifully with a real economy of means that is also very graceful. In short the movie looks great. But it is On Body and Soul's offbeat story that truly wins the day.

subtitles


Top Ten of '17 so far

Loveless, Zyvgintsev, Russia
The Death of Louis XIV, Serra, Spain/France
The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Lanthimos, Irelan/US
The Third Murder, Koreeda, Japan
Faces Places. Varda, France
A Fantastic Woman, Leilo, Chile
Valley of Shadows, Gulbrandsen, Norway
On Body and Soul, Enyedi, Hungary
The Seen and the Unseen, Indonesia
After the Storm, Kore-eda, Japan

 

[kihei]

Final TIFF scorecard

Best movie of the bunch

Loveless

Among the best movies of the year

The Killing of a Sacred Deer
The Third Murder
Faces Places
A Fantastic Woman
Valley of Shadows

Good movies

On Body and Soul
The Seen and the Unseen
Killing Jesus
Zama
Thelma
Happy End
The Square
April's Daughter
The Journey
Dark Is the Night
The Other Side of Hope

Disappointing movies

If You Could See His Heart
In the Fade
The Mountain Between Us

Bad movies

Shiekh Jackson
Omerta
Downrange
Manhunt
The Summit

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Hell or High Water

with Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Jeff Bridges with wads of paper towel shoved in his cheeks.

Chris Pine and Ben Foster are brothers in a dilapidated West Texas where everything looks like it was left off the set of a post-apocalyptic movie for being too shabby and depressing. Chris has an ex-wife and kids out there, and is nice enough to feel bad about robbing banks. Ben is the loose cannon ex-con who isn't. They're hitting Texas Midlands Banks (and banks don't come out looking good in this one) for a reason: a few thousand here and there is the difference between saving the family ranch and giving Chris Pine's kids a future that doesn't involve being depressed to death like everyone else in West Texas these days. But Jeff Bridges and someone else are a couple of cagey US Marshalls on their case because due to their only stealing small bills the Feds aren't interested in them. Bridges is just about retired. Don't worry if you miss that, it's a point that gets hammered home by just about everyone he meets.

I've never been to West Texas. This movie has effectively inoculated me against any desire to ever do so under any circumstances.

Very good movie, though. You do get the distinct impression the people who made it sat down to watch No Country For Old Men for about a week solidly, though. Derivative, but good.

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

It: 7.5/10

 

[Puck]

Thanks to all the TIFF reviewers. Much appreciated.

 

[Nalens Oga]

Baby Driver (2017) - 6.5/10

Outside of Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim, I think Wright's work is a bit overrated, maybe people are distractingly impressed by the speed of his movies. I hate choreographed dancing so good chunks of this are obnoxious for me, the dialogue is very very poor (trying to pass off as the cool Tarantino-esque type but without any wit), and there's a generic movie here when you take those things away including a boring romance and a boring lead-character who isn't as cool as you're led to believe in the beginning.

It has some nice car stunts, some cool cinematography in certain bits, and the final third is fairly well done (minus Kevin Spacey's character inexplicably turning from a blackmailer who earlier threatens to kill his girlfriend to a friend willing to help him all of a sudden). Also, props to him on some of the usage of music/variety, it isn't as obnoxiously done as in the 2nd Guardians of the Galaxy movie where they're really trying to force the pscychadelia down your throat.

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

Thanks to all the TIFF reviewers. Much appreciated.

Indeed. Still waiting on kihei's mother! review though!

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Indeed. Still waiting on kihei's mother! review though!

So am I.

Don't review movies often - don't know why I stopped - but I re-watched The King of Comedy by Scorcese last night. What an absolute tour-de-force. I have no idea why any other of his movie is considered superior. Greatest DeNiro performance as well and Sandra Bernhard knocked it out of the park as well (Jerry Lewis, too). The story-telling is tight and concise but never leaves you wanting more or asking questions - it's not that kind of movie - while making an important and tragic point about fame and mental illness. Anyone who likes black and cringy comedy - and I don't think there's ever been a character as cringy in a well-done way as Rupert Pupkin - should watch this one. It's still fresh as a topic, too.

 

[kihei]

Long Time Running (2017) Directed by Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier unrated

The Tragically Hip have always meant way more to Canadians than to anyone else on the planet. And that always seemed just fine with the band which is one of things that people liked about them. The Hip were a hometown band with a very real bond between themselves and their homegrown audience. When Gord Downie was diagnosed with incurable brain cancer, the news touched a lot of people personally. When the band decided to go on the road for one last time, a farewell tour that was genuinely a farewell tour, the event took on broader cultural implications. This excellent documentary touches all of the necessary bases from the initial diagnosis of Downie's condition, through preparation for the tour, to the final epic show in Kingston, Ontario, which thanks to the CBC was watched by roughly a third of Canada's population. While a project such as this cannot entirely escape the maudlin, directors Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier find exactly the right tone, informative and supportive, but stay well away from cheap sentimentality. They do what good documentarians do--they record the event and all of the variables surrounding it as conscientiously and informatively as they can. While the resulting movie will be a very emotional experience for a lot of people, even those of us who liked but didn't love the band will have to admit that this tour constitutes a watershed moment in Canadian music history, not so much in terms of just the concerts themselves but in terms of the gathering of the tribe in support of one of the best of our own as he says goodbye to us on his own terms. It is also a very personal documentary, too, which looks at the human side of all this and captures a lot of very different people demonstrating immense grace under pressure. In Canada, Like Time Running will have a very long shelf life.

 

[kihei]

As fate would have it, Mother! is up to bat tomorrow.

 

[Led Zappa]

As fate would have it, Mother! is up to bat tomorrow.

It's "mother!"

 

[NyQuil]

It's "mother!"

If it's anything like Oliver! I know it'll be absolutely delightful!

 

[kihei]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To which I can only say: Mamma Mia!

 

[Fugazy]

It - 7.6/10

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

mother! (dir. Darren Aronofsky). C+

Well, that was something.

 

[kihei]

mother! (2017) Directed by Darren Aronofsky 3B

A young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who thought she had a happy marriage balks when her husband (Javier Bardem) begins to invite an ever growing number of strangers to move in with them. Their relationship becomes increasingly strained as the situation gets weirder and weirder. And weirder. My first thought leaving the theatre was: why would Aronofsky want to do that to his girlfriend? Lawrence's performance is reduced early on to a series of "deer in the headlights" reaction shots and later to an ever expanding series of Maria Sharapova-like grunts. Aronofsky filming Lawrence in hand-held close ups all the time only heightens the monotony of the performance. But nothing in the movie, from the unnecessary diaphanous nightgown shots in the first couple of minutes to the revealing beating she must endure near the end suggests what she (or he, for that matter) saw in this role to begin with. For his part, Bardem never does find a strategy and is reduced to just speaking his lines as convincingly as possible which on occasion he can't quite manage. But the real culprit here is director Darren Aronofsky. He never gives us protagonists in whom we can emotionally invest--there is not enough backstory to care a tinker's damn about either one of them. So the audience is just left to count the horror movie references (Carrie; The Shining; The Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Rosemary's Baby; Psycho, and on and on), and watch all the nasty tedium float by not once but a second time even bigger and more outlandish than the first. The fact that the sickly, murky look of mother! makes it seem as though the whole thing was shot through a sh..-tinted filter doesn't help either. The overall effect of mother! is absolutely Trump-like in nature: a perverse, mean-spirited, self-indulgent, incoherent mess of a movie, the work of a man who should know better but clearly doesn't give a damn.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

mother! (2017) Directed by Darren Aronofsky 3B

A young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who thought she had a happy marriage balks when her husband (Javier Bardem) begins to invite an ever growing number of strangers to move in with them. Their relationship becomes increasingly strained as the situation gets weirder and weirder. And weirder. My first thought leaving the theatre was: why would anyone want to do that to their girlfriend? Lawrence's performance is reduced early on to a series of "deer in the headlights" reaction shots and later to an ever expanding series of Maria Sharapova-like grunts. Aronofsky filming Lawrence in hand-held close ups all the time only heightens the monotony of the performance. But nothing in the movie, from the unnecessary diaphanous nightgown shots in the first couple of minutes to the revealing beating she must endure near the end suggests what she (or he, for that matter) saw in this role to begin with. For his part, Bardem never does find a strategy and is reduced to just speaking his lines as convincingly as possible which on occasion he can't quite manage. But the real culprit here is director Darren Aronofsky. He never gives us protagonists in whom we can emotionally invest--there is not enough backstory to care a tinker's damn about either one of them. So the audience is just left to count the horror movie references (Carrie; The Shining; The Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Rosemary's Baby; Psycho, and on and on), and watch all the nasty tedium float by not once but a second time even bigger and more outlandish than the first. The fact that the sickly, murky look of mother! makes it seem as though the whole thing was shot through a sh..-tinted filter doesn't help either. The overall effect of mother! is absolutely Trump-like in nature: a perverse, mean-spirited, self-indulgent, incoherent mess of a movie, the work of a man who should know better but clearly doesn't give a damn.

Wow. Pretty damning. I have to admit, I was waiting to see what you made of it before I floated the idea of seeing it to my wife.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Oh, and:

Heavy Metal

(animated)

The original animated bouncing boob extravaganza that can only truly be appreciated by those of us born before the internet gave every 13 year-old the ability to get bored of interracial beastiality S+M porn in HD. A series of animated vignettes tell the tale of the Lock-Nar; a green globe that embodies all evil and sort of bums aimlessly around the universe screwing random people over.

Better than that recap sounds.

A midnight movie artifact from the days of mullets and jean jackets, when things could still be ironic unintentionally, and the planetarium could still be cool after 10pm. Also the first full-length movie by legendary Canadian animation landmark Nelvana Studio.

Soundtrack by Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, and other, even hairier bands.

 

[kihei]

Wow. Pretty damning. I have to admit, I was waiting to see what you made of it before I floated the idea of seeing it to my wife.

If I took my partner, she would kill me. So caution on that score.

 

[The Devil In I]

mother! (2017) Directed by Darren Aronofsky 3B

A young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who thought she had a happy marriage balks when her husband (Javier Bardem) begins to invite an ever growing number of strangers to move in with them. Their relationship becomes increasingly strained as the situation gets weirder and weirder. And weirder. My first thought leaving the theatre was: why would Aronofsky want to do that to his girlfriend? Lawrence's performance is reduced early on to a series of "deer in the headlights" reaction shots and later to an ever expanding series of Maria Sharapova-like grunts. Aronofsky filming Lawrence in hand-held close ups all the time only heightens the monotony of the performance. But nothing in the movie, from the unnecessary diaphanous nightgown shots in the first couple of minutes to the revealing beating she must endure near the end suggests what she (or he, for that matter) saw in this role to begin with. For his part, Bardem never does find a strategy and is reduced to just speaking his lines as convincingly as possible which on occasion he can't quite manage. But the real culprit here is director Darren Aronofsky. He never gives us protagonists in whom we can emotionally invest--there is not enough backstory to care a tinker's damn about either one of them. So the audience is just left to count the horror movie references (Carrie; The Shining; The Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Rosemary's Baby; Psycho, and on and on), and watch all the nasty tedium float by not once but a second time even bigger and more outlandish than the first. The fact that the sickly, murky look of mother! makes it seem as though the whole thing was shot through a sh..-tinted filter doesn't help either. The overall effect of mother! is absolutely Trump-like in nature: a perverse, mean-spirited, self-indulgent, incoherent mess of a movie, the work of a man who should know better but clearly doesn't give a damn.

Curious if you caught the more apparent biblical references (Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Ash Wednesday, receiving communion...probably more I'm forgetting and/or missed) and the reference to The Giving Tree?

I'd assume you did, but just seems odd to say the audience is left to only count horror movie references...when references to other things were way more crucial to the point the movie was trying to make.

 

[BonMorrison]

It - 7.5/10

So wholesome. So many beautiful themes of friendship, grief, sticking together, growing up, loss of innocence. Take away Pennywise and it's still a great coming of age film.

 

[kihei]

Curious if you caught the more apparent biblical references (Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Ash Wednesday, receiving communion...probably more I'm forgetting and/or missed) and the reference to The Giving Tree?

I'd assume you did, but just seems odd to say the audience is left to only count horror movie references...when references to other things were way more crucial to the point the movie was trying to make.

That point being what exactly?

 

[Puck]

A Ghost Story by David Lowery. Oh this was bad sheet. No wonder Affleck covered up. Two hours of my life I'll never get back; Lowery was able to stretch the time-space continuum and make it seem like 6 hours. He also prolly wrote this two sheets to the wind doing it. It could have used some comic relief with a Demi Moore type clay pot scene, maybe. Instead we got many minutes (seemed like hours) of Rooney Mara eating a pie. It bombed at the Box Office but they still made a profit cuz they only spent 100,000 to make it. It shows. The byline should be A Ghost Story: Sheet Happens. I have more bad sheet lines but I'll stop here.

Some people liked it. It gets decent reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb. Go figure. Maybe it goes better with hash brownies.

 

[The Devil In I]

That point being what exactly?

[SPOIL]The whole movie is a criticism of humanity (more specifically Christianity) worshiping their religious god over worshiping mother nature/the earth...and instead constantly taking from/disrespecting the earth. The poet is a representation of "God" and the wife/"mother" is a representation of mother nature, with the house representing "earth". This was even further hinted at in the credits at the end, with the credit for "Him" being the only credited role that was properly capitalized (since you're supposed to always capitalize "God").

That quote from the scene at the end "I have nothing left to give you" is I believe taken verbatim from The Giving Tree. Once he's taken everything he can from her, the world is wiped clean and started new (with a new iteration of mother nature at the end).[/SPOIL]

I get not liking it, as it certainly went over the top/too hard especially in the final ~30-40 mins...but I think the main problem with the bad reviews it's getting is people went in expecting a horror/thriller, and that's not really what the movie was.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

So it's An Inconvenient Truth meets The Wicker Man?