Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number

[Spring in Fialta]

The flashbacks were indicative a bigger overall problem. There's a fine line between "ambiguous" and "incomplete," and both the flashbacks and the film as a whole fell into the latter category for me. From a character building standpoint they added nothing that we couldn't have inferred from Phoenix's current actions and state of mind, and as a result they felt gimmicky more than anything. I also don't feel that Ramsey brought this performance out of Joaquin; he could do this kind of role in his sleep. Ramsey is an interesting female filmmaker at a time where we need a lot more of them, but her direction didn't add much to this very thin material. It merely disguised and distracted from it.

Very good point about the flashbacks not actually adding anything to the character. The movie has a really cool aesthetic and I commend Ramsay for offering a relatively fresh take and delivery to the genre and I still think the film is a fine one, but my impressions were much stronger after the initial viewing.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Haven't reviewed anything in a while - I have such an on and off relationship with cinema.

Blue Velvet (1986) - Lynch's best but I'm also not as hyped on him as others can be. The atmosphere is second to none, and while the contrast is interesting and executed to perfection, the common-place dialogue - outside of Frank Booth and his cronies - is a jarring flaw (not helped by the wooden Kyle McClahan and Laura Dern) but one which can be overlooked when you let yourself be taken in by the seedy feel. The beer at Ben's feel is breathtaking, though and while the movie misses the texture of dreams - which Lynch seems to be obsessed with - he nails the absurd actions but sensical-in-dreams behavior of the bit characters perfectly.

Toy Story (1995) - Cute, and the animation stands the test of time, IMO. The voice actors oozed with presence, and a nice sentiment behind the film lingers throughout.

Jackie Brown (1997) - Tarantino's best and while one of the least flashy, certainly feels like his most stylish one, with a more authentic feel to its surrondings and interactions. His more recent films feel like they have too much extravagance in a tasteless kind of way. DeNiro, Grier, Jackson are all great here. As is Chris Tucker in his much too brief appearance.

The Departed (2006) - I'm the only one in the world who prefers it to Infernal Affairs (which I found awful) but the movie certainly hasn't stood the test of time. Cartoonish and littered with obvious tropes and Boston stereotypes. Over-acted to the utmost extent too, outside of Damon - although Nicholson is always fun - who's got the best actual performance. And the writing tries way too hard to go for a sort of tough guy intellectualism that just kind of feels corny and forced.

 

[Nalens Oga]

Tully (2018) - Good
Isle of Dogs (2018) - Great
Elite Squad (2007) - Decent
The Devil AND Miss Jones (1941) - Good
The Browning Version (1951) - Good

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

I'll get to test out my position during the weekend when I go to another Joaquin Phoenix big performance movie Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot directed by Gus Van Sant. I'll reserve further comment until I see that and have something to compare Ramsay's work to and see how the two films match up. Until then, I leave you with this piece from The Globe and Mail, a pretty good reflection of my basic position vis a vis Ramsay and You Were Never Really Here:

Review: You Were Never Really Here is Lynne Ramsay’s dark masterpiece

Cheers, I'll check that out. Always enjoy a nice film discussion. And I'm very curious to see your review of DWHWGFOF, as I'm a huge Gus Van Sant fan and am hoping he rebounds.

 

[kihei]

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018) Director Gus Van Sant 4B

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot is a biopick of quadriplegic cartoonist John Callahan's (Joaquin Phoenix) battle with alcohol and disability. The movie boosts another solid performance by Phoenix, and is an improvement for director Gus Van Sant after his last film The Sea of Trees. But this one has lots of problems, too, and they mostly fall on Van Sant who wrote, directed and co-edited the film. For starters, the movie seemed endless, not to mention a little jumbled, as so many repetitious scenes, almost all shot in unnecessarily annoying wide-angled close ups, add an undesirable, cramped element to almost all of the movie. As Phoenix is virtually in every scene and drunk for a significant part of the time, this approach to shot selection did him no favours as it tended to make some of his physical reactions seem a bit on the stagy side. In terms of narrative, Van Sant flits back and forth among Callahan's physical condition, his addiction and his offbeat, acerbic cartoons, never all that concerned with forming the parts into a whole. The cartoon sections really held my interest, though, and I wish more time had been devoted to that aspect of Callahan's life. One saving grace in the film is the performance of an almost unrecognizable Jonah Hill as John's Alcohol Anonymous sponsor Donny whose cool, insightful support masks a man still fighting his own demons. Along with Callahan, Donny is the only other semi-whole character in the movie, and a few of his scenes with Phoenix represent about the only time that a character other than Callahan took on something approaching real feeling rather than its movie-reality counterpart. With no clear direction rising to the surface, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot ends on an inspirational note. While not a complete disaster thanks to two fine performances, I think the movie will likely sink from sight pretty quickly.

Sidenote: For a guy who is supposed to be a quadriplegic, Phoenix's Callahan partially but clearly uses his arms late in the movie which isn't a big deal but confused the living hell out of me. If it's a mistake, it seems an exceedingly odd one. Maybe I missed some improvement in his condition, but I don't have a clue what it could have been.

 

[kihei]

As to the Lynne Ramsay question, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot proved an interesting contrast with You Were Never Really Here. I don't think Van Sant does a good job creating a milieu that supports Phoenix's performance. To the extent Phoenix can, he does carry the movie, but with very little help from Van Sant whose direction calls attention mostly to itself. In contrast, I think Ramsay provides Phoenix with an excellent setting for his performance in You Were Never Really Here, both in terms of atmosphere and maximizing overall impact. Likely as a direct result, she is rewarded with one of Phoenix's best ever performances.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Minions

with little yellow pill-shaped things

The origin story of the Despicable Me series' main character Gru's workforce of...minions. Actually liked it better than any of the Despicable Me movies I've seen.

 

[HanSolo]

Get Out 8.5/10

I know I'm way late to the party seeing this one but I decided to give it a go since it's leaving the HBO library at the end of the month.

I think it's a terrific directorial debut for Jordan Peele. His attention to detail and his ability to generate unease and tension in such a subtle way was fantastic to watch. I think it touches on real social issues without detracting the narrative by being overly blunt. I can't think of an elegant way to describe it, but there was a perfect balance between message and narrative in my opinion. The movie did drag a bit at certain points but not nearly enough to weaken the movie.

 

[kihei]

Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) Directed by Christopher McQuarrie 7A

The plot for Fallout is pretty much MI boilerplate stuff--a nefarious villain, a plan that threatens world order, nuclear weapons in the wrong hands, with the all too familiar side dish of Ethan once again being betrayed by his bosses stirred into the mix. But it is not so much the tale that matters here as the telling of that tale. On that score, the movie succeeds spectacularly. Fallout is full of mind-boggling action sequences, all of them dependent on Tom Cruise taking risk after risk, most of which appear to be flat out insane. If anyone wondered what Cruise could do to top hanging onto the outside of a cargo plane as it takes off in the previous Mission Impossible, well, this movie provides the answer, several answers actually. All the major stunts in Fallout caused me to shake my head in wonder. The best is saved for last as a thirty minute finale of pure action is perfectly directed and thrilling to behold including a helicopter sequence that has to be seen to be believed. I can't imagine what the franchise or, most especially, Cruise can possibly do for an encore, but, for sure, neither the Mission Impossible series nor the actor has worn out their welcome just yet.


Best of ’18 so far


On the Beach at Night Alone, Hong, South Korea
November, Sarnet, Estonia
Leave No Trace, Granik, US
Foxtrot, Maoz, Israel
You Were Never Really Here, Ramsay, US
Upgrade, Whannell, Australia
Annihilation, Garland, US
Black Panther, Coogler, US
Clare’s Camera, Hong, South Korea

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Extinction

with Michael Pena and other, also very bland and generic people you might have seen before in other movies that you also forgot about

Peter (Pena) is an engineer working somewhere doing stuff. He lives in a nice apartment in a nice city. He's got a nice wife and two nice (if rebellious) daughters. But somehow, he's not happy. He's seeing things...bad things. He continually hallucinates war zones and invasions...it's gotten to the point where his understanding boss sends him off to therapy after he blacks out at work. His wife and kids are bemused about his obsession with watching the sky. He misses family time that he himself proposed, and at a party to celebrate his wife's promotion at work, he's ignoring the party to stare at the sky through a telescope. He's seemingly wracked with PTSD from some war...which then suddenly crashes the party. Masses of bright lights fill the sky and hammer down on the city, dispensing ground troopers with nasty guns and a hankering for some carnage. The highrises are strafed with explosives, the city in in chaos...can our plucky family escape? Of course they can! Do they take a mysterious invader hostage? Well, duh! Is one of the main characters struck down with an injury that requires immediate treatment but they just have to escape right now? Give you three guesses, and the first two don't count. There's a twist as well, but you won't care.

Totally formulaic and predictable. One of these days I'll learn to stop watching original Netflix movies.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

More movies after a lazy saturday with a buddy...

Senna (2010) - For one reason or another, I don't watch a lot of documentaries but my friend is a big racing/F1 fan and sang this movie's praise. Boy, was he right. It's borderline perfect, if not just for the underlying feeling that they're kind of overtly trying to paint Alain Prost (Senna's rival, their rivalry taking much a major chunk of the film) as an unreedemable villain agaisnt the virtuous hero. With that said, I thought if offered more thrills and played out its drama far better than most fictional movies, and they did great by doing away with the narration and only going with footage of Senna and a few insightful journalists. What a fascinating character Senna appears to have been, though. A charming maverick.

A Quiet Place (2018) - Very cool concept that is supported by a great first half, where its mood and atmosphere is set-up perfectly - which is what a good horror film should do - but unfortunately, as soon as the movie is set-up for takeoff, it commits suicide. Becomes utterly predictable and common-place, and cannot be differientiated from any other run-of-the-mill flick. I give it points for its original ambitions, but it definitely got lazy.

The Truman Show (1998) - A great concept that's executed in a really tacky way in the final act. Still a fun film, with good ideas, but lacks the artful approach that could have offered a better experience in more agile hands.

 

[MXD]

Rewatched Dazed and Confused last week.
Watched sober for the first time.
Loved it.

 

[kihei]

Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings (2018) Directed by Hark Tsui 4B

Director Hark Tsui, who has been doing this sort of thing since 1979, is a master at making action movies full of imagination and low budget daring set in the distant past. Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings is about the empress of the kingdom hiring a quartet of uniquely equipped apparitions from the underworld to steal a magic mace from Inspector Dee. This is the third film in this low-key Hong Kong franchise. and, like the rest, it places a Sherlock Holmes-type detective in a mythical Tang dynasty where all of the mysteries focus not on common criminals but on wizards, ninjas, spirits, sea monsters, and sorcerers. Except for the Andy Lau-graced original, the two sequels have had the same problems. Incoherent story lines are mated to some of the most imaginative if not exactly state-of-the-art special effects around. Sure, you can sort out the good guys from the bad guys easily enough by the second hour, but the confusion takes its toll on just how far you can get into the not infrequently delightful action sequences and the yummy eye candy. To compound the problem in this one, poorly thought-through editing sequences make matters worse. I really liked parts of this movie and its good-natured vibe, but I can't recommend it.

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[kihei]

As for the late arrival of Black Panther on my "best of '18," list, I started going through my reviews for the year so far, a very thin, mediocre year at best, and said to myself, "C'mon, that's better than almost anything you've seen so far." And indeed it is.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

As for the late arrival of Black Panther on my "best of '18," list, I started going through my reviews for the year so far, a very thin, mediocre year at best, and said to myself, "C'mon, that's better than almost anything you've seen so far." And indeed it is.

I've honestly found it's not sticking with me at all. It had its good points and it makes you realize just now neglected and overlooked anything that isn't mayo-white really is in...media, but the villains were all one-dimensional cardboard cutouts and I thought aside from the locations it was pretty by-the-numbers.

Weak year in movies indeed it must be.

 

[Trap Jesus]

Annihilation and Hereditary are the only standouts this year for me. Definitely seems like a weak year of what I've seen. Hopefully Yorgos can save the year.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?

8/10.

 

[kihei]

I've honestly found it's not sticking with me at all. It had its good points and it makes you realize just now neglected and overlooked anything that isn't mayo-white really is in...media, but the villains were all one-dimensional cardboard cutouts and I thought aside from the locations it was pretty by-the-numbers.

Weak year in movies indeed it must be.

I liked the detail of the world that Black Panther created--its mise en scene really fit its subject to a tee--and how the movie kept me fully engaged from start to finish. Super-hero movies almost never feel "complete" to me, but this one did. That being said, it will be a really bad year if by the end Black Panther is still in my top ten.

Later: Saw Fallout again tonight, and maybe that was just too soon. The stunts are still great, but when they are not happening there is not much going on in the movie. Not a problem the first time around, but it definitely came into play with the second viewing.

 

[silkyjohnson50]

Adaption: at least a 7.5-8/10

I thought it was great. Original, funny, and great acting. I didn't even realize that was Chris Cooper at first. And Nicolas freaking Cage was hilarious.

 

[kihei]

Angels Wear White (2018) Directed by Vivian Qu 6A

When two twelve-year-old girls are allegedly raped in a hotel room by one of the girl's uncle, an investigation gets underway that no one wants to see succeed, probably not even the investigators. Rather than the crime itself, the movie focuses on the duplicity of all concerned--the parents, the hotel staff, gang figures, even to some extent the girls themselves who early on are presented as trouble makers (as the film progresses their portrait softens). This is a movie in which nearly everyone is morally bankrupt, willingly corrupt or simply out for themselves pure and simple. It is the angriest film that I have seen from China, and my guess is that no one in China will see it. While officialdom comes in for intense criticism, so do the working class characters who seem devoid of ethical values. As well the disparity in power between men and women is underlined in felt marker. Angels Wear White is a solid film, though by the end its bleak portrayal of Chinese society seems a bit too theatrically constructed to be wholly satisfying.

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[Spring in Fialta]

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) - I remember watching this in my early 20s when I was probably watching 1-2 movies a day, scrouging the internet for gems. I also get the feeling I must have stumbled upon the original version, at 138 minutes, because I don't remember finishing the film whereas I think the 108 minutes version comes close to being a masterpiece. The only flaw I can find in it is the editing, where the pacing sometimes felt a bit jarring, and scenes that should have been longer were cut shorter and vice-versa. Outside of that, I think just about everything in the film is perfect - there's a great sense of action, despite a lack of explosiveness and pow pow, where craftiness and smarts are used with prowess to keep the stakes high, succeeding perfectly. Cassavetes also creates an enthralling main character, who despite being a deadbeat, is easy to care for through his predicament and the genuine care he shows for his work and entourage. The writing is strong too, not over-doing it with the bravardo or wit, and giving room to facial cues and the atmosphere to tell the story along with the dialogue, which is generally toned down and useful in the sense of adding to the story what images cannot. Very stylish use of settings and color too, with the (amateur) street reality feeling executed perfectly, within the seedy clubs and diners. It helps to have the viewer not feel detached from the events, but as if genuiely along for the ride with the downtrodden Cosmo Vitalli (what a great name, too) and there's a sense of true immersion into the work being felt. Ben Gazzara plays it to perfection. Loved it.

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

Hereditary - 8.5/10

Holy ****.

 

[kihei]

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (2018) Directed by Stephen Schible 7B (Documentary)

Ryuichi Sakamoto is kind of the Jonny Greenwood of Japan; in fact, he is amongst the very most important Japanese composer/musicians of the last 50 years. He started out with an ambitious synth-pop outfit in the late '70s, but soon segued into making more serious music as well as composing film scores (The Last Emperor; Revenent; Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, to name three). He is a connoisseur of sound whether it is as natural as rain water falling on a bucket or as created as a slur of noise on a synthesizer. When Sakamoto finds a new sound that he likes and will incorporate into his minimalist music, he beams from ear to ear like a child with a Christmas present. While the documentary initially recognizes his political activism and his long and grueling fight with stage 3 throat cancer, the film really is a hymn to the creative process, a process that always feels somehow mystical from a distance but which often boils down to a lot of trial and error (plus the requisite genius necessary to know what you are doing). Sakamoto comes off as an extremely likeable man and a very dedicated composer. His music is beautiful and haunting in equal measure.

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[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

upgrade: 7.5/10

First reformed: 6.8/10 It starts very well but the movie lost his Momentum and suffers from a poor ending.

 

[Hockeyfrilla]

Hostiles (2017, Scott Cooper)

7/10